AI Rules for Rhode Island Law Firms
Last verified July 8, 2026
Rhode Island's Supreme Court has moved from watching AI to regulating how lawyers use it, amending the state's core competence rule and issuing interim guidelines while a standing judicial committee works on what comes next. A comprehensive AI bill that would have reached legal services died in committee, but a related bill criminalizing AI-generated intimate imagery became law. If a client, carrier, or opposing counsel asks how your firm handles AI, this page lays out what is binding, what is guidance, and what is still moving through Providence.
Where Rhode Island Stands
The Rhode Island Supreme Court amended Article V, Rule 1.1 of its Rules of Professional Conduct and adopted Interim Generative AI Guidelines, now in effect. The Rule 1.1 comment requires lawyers to keep abreast of the benefits and risks of existing and developing technology, a duty that now expressly extends to AI. Separately, the court's Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts, created by Executive Order 2024-03 and extended by Executive Order 2025-06, is the body expected to produce Rhode Island's next round of binding AI rules, with a progress report due February 2026.
What Your Firm Must Do
Under the interim guidelines, your firm must verify generative AI output before relying on it, communicate with clients when AI use is material to the representation, maintain confidentiality safeguards around any AI tool handling client information, and not bill clients for time that AI saved. These obligations run through the amended Rule 1.1 comment, not through a separate freestanding AI statute.
Malpractice and Carrier Considerations
A comprehensive high-risk AI bill, S 0627, expressly listed legal services among the "consequential decisions" it would have covered before dying in committee in May 2025. Expect reintroduced versions in future sessions that could impose deployer duties on firms using AI in client-facing decisions, which is the kind of exposure carriers are likely to start asking about even before any such bill passes.
What's Still Pending
Rhode Island enacted H 5046 in July 2025 (with companion bill S 0136), criminalizing AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery. This creates new criminal and civil matters for litigation and family law practices rather than a direct AI-use obligation for your firm. Watch the AI Committee's February 2026 progress report and any reintroduction of S 0627-style deployer obligations for the next binding changes.
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- In re Amendments to Article V, Rule 1.1 of the Supreme Court Rules and Adoption of Interim Generative AI Guidelines
- Supreme Court Executive Order 2025-06 (Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts)
- S 0627 (2025, Rhode Island Artificial Intelligence Act)
- H 5046 (2025, AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery)