On 2 October 2025, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) published a Guide on the Use of Generative AI by Lawyers. It aims to raise awareness regarding the use of generative AI (GenAI) in legal practice and to highlight the opportunities and risks associated with its use, in particular with regard to applicable professional ethics and regulations.

The guide criticises the lack of a definition of GenAI, which seems to be a subset under general purpose AI systems as defined in Art. 3 of the AI Act. According to the CCBE, the use of GenAI among lawyers is increasing, and it brings tangible advantages: greater efficiency, quicker handling of cases, enhanced research capacity, and reduced costs. However, these benefits must be balanced against the following serious risks:

• Client data retention by AI systems without the user’s knowledge, which raises concerns about privacy and data protection;
• Hallucinations, when GenAI produces factually incorrect or illogical outputs, e.g., inventing case law or misattributing quotations;
• Reproduction or amplification of societal biases;
• Lack of transparency around how GenAI systems function;
• Unresolved questions surrounding intellectual property in AI-generated content;
• Heightened cybersecurity vulnerabilities linked to the use of such tools.

More specifically, the guide points out that the use of GenAI might affect several core principles of the legal profession, such as:

• Confidentiality: Lawyers may not input personal, confidential, or client-related information into GenAI tools;
• Professional competence: Outputs generated by AI must be independently verified; lawyers must understand the technology’s capabilities and limitations.
• Independence: Awareness of algorithmic bias and AI “sycophancy” is key to avoiding undue influence on professional judgment;
• Transparency: Lawyers should inform clients when they intend to use GenAI tools, affording clients the opportunity to object to its use.

With this guidance, the CCBE underscores that GenAI can support legal practice only if used responsibly – with safeguards that preserve the profession’s ethical foundations.