COURSE DESCRIPTION
In an era of increasing automation and legal technology, the boundaries of what constitutes the unauthorized practice of law (UPL) are rapidly shifting. This session explores emerging UPL issues, including the rise of non-lawyer legal service providers, AI-driven legal tools, and the ethical and regulatory challenges they present. You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of how these developments are reshaping the legal profession and what steps you can take to protect your practice and clients.
Highlights:
- The impact of legal technology and AI tools on UPL regulations.
- Case studies on UPL enforcement actions and their outcomes.
- Ethical pitfalls and how to address them in your own practice.
- An analysis of state-specific UPL rules and trends.
- Practical steps to mitigate risk when collaborating with non-lawyer service providers.
Speakers:
Tom Spahn is of counsel in the Tysons Corners, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, where he advises firm clients on professional responsibility issues and properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. He has served on the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and is a Member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has written extensively on attorney-client privilege, ethics and other topics, and has spoken at over 2200 CLE programs throughout the U.S. and in several foreign countries. Through links on his website biography, he has made available to the public his summaries of over 1,600 Virginia and ABA legal ethics opinions, organized by topic; a 300 page summary of his two-volume 1,500 page book on the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine; over 1100 weekly email alerts about privilege and work product cases; and materials for 40 ethics programs on numerous topics, totaling over 9,000 pages of analysis.