The American Bar Association announced a new panel to analyze how AI will affect legal practice and to investigate the ethical issues.

With artificial intelligence likely to revolutionize the practice of law in the coming years, the largest voluntary attorney membership organization in the United States has assembled a team of lawyers to help steer the transformation. The American Bar Association announced Monday the formation of a new panel to analyze how AI will affect legal practice and to investigate the ethical issues that the technology raises for the legal profession.

Since ChatGPT and other new generative AI products surfaced last year, lawyers and law firms have been increasingly experimenting with AI technologies, but many are also struggling with possible problems and ethical hazards. Former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is one of seven "special advisors" to the ABA's new task force, as is Seth Waxman, a former U.S. Solicitor General who is now a partner and co-chair of the appellate and Supreme Court litigation practice at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Michelle Lee, former head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Ivan Fong, former chief counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security, are also among the special advisors. According to the ABA, the task force will investigate concerns such as risk management, generative AI, access to justice, AI governance, and AI in legal education. The organization will focus on current and emerging AI issues and provide practical information that lawyers need to stay abreast of and navigate this complex technology.