AI Rules for Oregon Law Firms
Last verified July 8, 2026
Oregon courts have already sanctioned lawyers over AI-generated filings, and the state bar has since issued a formal opinion spelling out what AI use requires. The Department of Justice has separately confirmed that existing consumer and privacy law applies in full to AI. Your firm has exposure on three fronts: the courtroom, client-facing disclosure, and any advice you give business clients about their own AI use.
Where Oregon Stands
The Oregon Supreme Court issued its first AI-related orders in Aldridge v. Tussing (S072780) and Witkin v. McGreevy (S072692), striking a petition built on fabricated citations from a tool called LegalAI and imposing a $500 sanction in the second case. The Oregon State Bar followed with Formal Opinion No. 2025-205 on Artificial Intelligence Tools, approved by the Board of Governors in February 2025, which permits AI use subject to specific conditions. Separately, the Oregon DOJ has published guidance confirming that the Unlawful Trade Practices Act, the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act, and the Equality Act all apply fully to AI. The Bar has since extended its guidance to client-facing tools: Formal Ethics Opinion No. 2026-208, Chatbots and AI Agent Communications, approved by the Board of Governors in February 2026, permits Oregon lawyers to use chatbots and AI agents for client marketing and intake subject to competence, confidentiality, supervision, and anti-misleading-communication obligations under RPC 1.1, 1.18, 5.3, 7.1, and 7.3(a).
What Your Firm Must Do
OSB Formal Opinion 2025-205 requires your firm to verify every AI-assisted citation and factual statement before filing, obtain informed consent from clients before their information goes into an open AI model, disclose any AI cost pass-throughs to clients, preferably in writing, train and supervise staff who use AI, and never bill for time that AI saved. Given the court's sanction history in Aldridge and Witkin, human cite-checking on every filing is not optional practice, it's what the court has already penalized firms for skipping.
Malpractice and Carrier Considerations
Courts and insurers in Oregon have direct precedent to point to now, the $500 sanction in Witkin v. McGreevy, when asking about your firm's AI verification process. If your firm advises Oregon business clients on AI deployments, or makes claims about your own AI-assisted services, the DOJ's guidance means those statements are evaluated under the Unlawful Trade Practices Act like any other consumer-facing claim, and any data-consent obligations under the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act apply as they would to non-AI data handling.
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- Oregon Supreme Court AI sanction orders (Aldridge v. Tussing S072780; Witkin v. McGreevy S072692)
- Oregon State Bar Formal Opinion No 2025-205 (Artificial Intelligence Tools)
- Oregon Department of Justice, AI Guidance
- Oregon State Bar Formal Ethics Opinion No. 2026-208 (Chatbots and AI Agent Communications)