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Legal technology, sourced and in full

Long-form

Sourced, in full

A small number of developments in legal technology, written up at length with every source linked. The short version of every story is on LexCircuit.

7 pieces

Regulation34 articles

European Commission publishes final general-purpose AI code of practice

The European Commission published the final general-purpose AI code of practice, setting out how providers of large models can demonstrate compliance with the AI Act's transparency and systemic-risk obligations. Signatories gain a presumption of conformity; non-signatories must show equivalent measures. The code covers training-data summaries, copyright policy and incident reporting. Fifteen providers have signed. The Commission said the code is voluntary but that supervision begins immediately.

Ethics opinion7 articles

Florida Bar treats AI tools as nonlawyer assistants for supervision purposes

The Florida Bar issued an opinion on supervising generative AI, treating an AI tool as a nonlawyer assistant for the purposes of the supervision rule. Lawyers must verify AI output before filing or advising, and a firm must have written policies covering permitted tools and confidentiality. The opinion does not require client consent for internal use but requires it before client data enters a third-party tool.

Regulation7 articles

Most EU AI Act obligations became applicable on 2 August 2026

Most obligations under the EU AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026, two years after the regulation entered into force. The date covers Annex III high-risk systems, transparency duties and the national penalty regimes member states were required to lay down. Obligations for high-risk systems embedded in products regulated under Annex I follow on 2 August 2027.

Research60 articles

Academic benchmark of seven AI legal research products reports citation error rates varying by an order of magnitude, and finds retrieval grounding reduces but does not eliminate fabrication

An academic team published a benchmark measuring citation accuracy in AI legal research tools, testing seven commercial products against a set of two thousand questions drawn from state and federal practice. The paper reports error rates varying by an order of magnitude between products and finds that retrieval-augmented systems reduce but do not eliminate fabricated citations. The authors released the question set and scoring code, and invited vendors to submit corrections before a second round of testing later this year.

Court orderCorrected28 articles

S.D.N.Y. sanctions two lawyers over six fabricated citations and sets a verification standard for future filings

A Southern District of New York judge imposed sanctions on two lawyers whose brief cited six cases that do not exist, referring both to the state bar and ordering them to notify their client. The court found the citations were generated by an AI research tool and filed without verification. Sanctions include a monetary penalty and mandatory continuing education. The opinion sets out a verification standard that the court says it will apply to future filings across its docket.

Corrected . An earlier version of this card said the penalty was $7,500. Reuters and Law360 report $5,000; Bloomberg Law reports $7,500. The summary now states the sanction without a figure and the key point carries both.

Litigation22 articles

Proposed class action challenges hallucination-free marketing claims for legal research tools

A proposed class action filed in the Northern District of California alleges that marketing claims about hallucination-free legal research were false and misleading. The complaint seeks refunds for subscription fees paid by small firms and solo practitioners. It pleads claims under California's unfair competition law. No defendant has answered, and the docket shows a scheduled hearing on the motion to dismiss in October.

Regulation16 articles

EU Data Act cloud switching obligations become enforceable, ending egress charges for legal technology vendors that host client matter data in the Union and requiring published export formats

Cloud switching obligations under the EU Data Act became enforceable, requiring providers to remove contractual, commercial and technical barriers to moving a customer's data to a competing service. Egress charges must be withdrawn entirely from January, and providers must publish the formats in which data is exported. Legal technology vendors hosting client matter data in the Union are in scope regardless of where the vendor is established, and several vendors have already republished their standard terms to reflect the change.