If My Nebraska Law Firm Uses AI, Why Does It Tell Me to Be Careful With It?
It's a fair question. Our engagement agreement asks clients to talk with us before putting facts, documents, or our advice about their case into an AI tool. Meanwhile, our own work includes AI-assisted drafting and analysis prepared for attorney review. So which is it? Is AI risky or isn't it?
The honest answer is that the caution isn't really about the tool. It's about what surrounds it. When a Nebraska lawyer uses AI, the work is still governed by professional duties of competence, confidentiality, candor to the court, supervision, communication, and reasonable fees. The lawyer remains responsible for the result. A consumer AI provider is not your lawyer and doesn't owe you those duties. Pasting your lawyer's advice into a chatbot can also raise privilege questions that are much easier to avoid than to sort out afterward.
Those duties don't make a law firm's use of AI automatically safe. A law license doesn't turn an inaccurate draft into an accurate one. In March 2026, the Nebraska Supreme Court struck a lawyer's appellate brief filled with fabricated and misquoted authority. It dismissed the appeal after finding no plain error and referred the lawyer to the Counsel for Discipline. The court said its analysis was the same whether or not AI was involved. What the rules do is make a firm's use of AI accountable, and you're entitled to ask how your lawyer meets them.
We've recently published a series of posts about how clients can approach AI. This one turns the same questions on lawyers, including us. It covers:
what attorney review should actually catch;
how a firm should protect your information when it uses outside technology;
what you can ask about AI and your bill, including Nebraska's rule entitling you to a fee accounting without charge; and
how to raise concerns, ask about limits, or coordinate your own AI use with your legal team.
The Short Answer: Same Technology, Different Accountability
When clients ask why a firm can use AI but asks them to check first, the real comparison isn't "a lawyer using AI" versus "a client using AI." It's work done inside a system of professional duties versus work done outside one.
Here's what applies when a Nebraska lawyer uses AI on your matter:
Competence. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, preparation, and judgment reasonably necessary for the matter (Neb. Ct. R. of Prof. Cond. § 3-501.1). Comment [6] adds that keeping current includes "the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology." The Nebraska Supreme Court pointed to that same comment in Prososki v. Regan.
Confidentiality. A lawyer generally may not reveal information relating to your representation unless one of three things is true: you give informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized to carry out the representation, or a listed exception applies (§ 3-501.6(a)). The rule's commentary calls for competent safeguards against inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure and reasonable precautions when information is transmitted (cmts. [15], [16]).
Candor to the court. A lawyer must not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a court. The lawyer must also correct a materially false statement the lawyer previously made. And the lawyer must disclose known, directly adverse controlling authority that opposing counsel hasn't disclosed (§ 3-503.3(a)(1)–(2)).
Supervision. Lawyers with managerial or supervisory authority must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm's lawyers and staff act consistently with the lawyers' professional obligations (§§ 3-505.1 and 3-505.3).
Communication and fees. Your lawyer must keep you reasonably informed and explain matters enough for you to make informed decisions (§ 3-501.4). Fees must be reasonable (§ 3-501.5).
No AI-specific rule is needed for these duties to apply. In Prososki, the court held that fabricated legal authority, whether produced through generative AI or not, can be addressed under Nebraska's existing professional-conduct and court rules. In the Nebraska sources we reviewed through October 2026, we did not identify an ethics advisory opinion specifically addressing generative AI.
A consumer AI provider is different. It isn't your lawyer, and it doesn't owe you the professional duties your lawyer owes you. Its contractual and other legal obligations are separate from your lawyer's duties in your case. Sharing your lawyer's advice with an AI tool can also raise a waiver question under Nebraska's privilege statutes. We explain that in our post on why our retainer agreement mentions AI tools like ChatGPT.
None of that gives a law firm a pass. It gives you a standard to hold your lawyer to, including us.
How We Use AI, and What Stays With the Attorney
At Zachary W. Anderson Law, AI can help prepare first drafts and organize analysis. That work is prepared for attorney review. It's a stage in the work, not the finished product.
The attorney remains responsible for the legal analysis, the professional judgment, and the work the firm sends or files. That includes evaluating whether the facts support a position, what relief may be available, and what risks an approach creates.
You remain in charge of the big decisions. Under Nebraska's rules, the client decides the objectives of the representation and whether to settle. The lawyer advises you and consults with you about how to pursue those objectives (§ 3-501.2(a)). A tool doesn't change that division.
You should be able to ask what your lawyer concluded and why. The answer shouldn't depend on what a tool produced.
What Should Attorney Review Actually Catch?
Clean formatting and confident wording say little about whether a document is accurate or useful. Meaningful review checks substance, including what a draft leaves out. The examples in this section are hypotheticals, except where we discuss a published Nebraska decision.
Facts: What You Know, What You Were Told, and What You're Unsure About
A tool that turns rough notes into polished prose can erase important distinctions. It can blur what you saw yourself, what someone told you, what a record shows, and what's still disputed.
Suppose your notes say a parenting-time exchange happened "sometime after dinner" and that you don't remember the exact time. A draft that says the exchange happened at 7:15 p.m. has added a fact you never gave. Changing "I was worried" to "the child was in danger" may change the substance of your account.
Competent handling of a matter includes inquiry into and analysis of its factual and legal elements (§ 3-501.1, cmt. [5]). Review should compare key assertions with the records, ask about gaps, and preserve uncertainty where the evidence doesn't resolve it. Some statements will be attributed to you, especially ones you'll sign under oath. You should have the chance to correct those first.
Legal Authority: Real, Current, and Saying What the Draft Claims
Checking a citation means finding the authority and reading the relevant part in context. It also means confirming the authority is still good law and deciding whether it supports the specific point being made. A real case or statute can still be cited for something it doesn't say.
Prososki shows what that looks like in a Nebraska custody appeal. Among many problems, the appellant's brief misquoted Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2923(1), the Parenting Act's best-interests provision. It attributed to the statute a sentence about ensuring frequent, continuing contact with both parents. The statute contains no such sentence.
Subsection (1) actually calls for a parenting arrangement that provides for a child's "safety, emotional growth, health, stability, and physical care." It also requires regular school attendance and progress for school-age children. The invented version sounded plausible, which is exactly the danger. A reviewer has to open the statute rather than trust a familiar-sounding sentence. Asking an AI tool to confirm its own answer doesn't do that.
Review should also identify contrary evidence and legal authority so you can make informed decisions. That's good case analysis. The duty of candor is a separate and narrower rule. It requires disclosing to the court known, directly adverse controlling authority that opposing counsel hasn't disclosed.
Fit: Does It Work for Your Case and Your Family?
A legally plausible option can still be a poor fit for your goals, your evidence, your budget, or the stage of your case. In a Nebraska parenting dispute, a schedule that looks balanced on paper still has to work for the child.
Suppose a draft calls for frequent school-night exchanges between parents who live far apart and work different shifts. Review should ask about transportation, the child's routine, any safety concerns, and existing orders.
If the issue is contested, the court decides it under Nebraska's best-interests requirements, including applicable safety protections. Agreed parenting plans also remain subject to court review (§ 43-2923(4)). An AI-generated schedule can't guarantee an outcome or replace analysis of the evidence, existing orders, and applicable law.
Supervision: The People Using the Tools Need Instructions
Review isn't only about documents. Staff who use technology need clear instruction about what information may go into a tool and when attorney review is required. The commentary to Nebraska's rule on nonlawyer assistants specifically calls for instruction and supervision on the obligation not to disclose client information (§ 3-505.3, cmt. [1]).
What Happens When Nobody Checks?
Two 2026 Nebraska Supreme Court decisions make the consequences concrete. We discuss both in more detail in Why Did AI Give Me a Different Answer Than My Nebraska Lawyer?, so here's the short version.
Prososki v. Regan
Prososki v. Regan, 321 Neb. 38, 32 N.W.3d 593 (2026), was an appeal from a Douglas County divorce decree. The appellant's lawyer signed the brief. It contained fictitious cases, fabricated quotations, and real authority cited for propositions it didn't support. The lawyer denied using AI, and the court said its analysis would be the same either way.
The court struck the brief. It examined the appellant's claims for plain error and found none, then dismissed his appeal and referred his lawyer to the Counsel for Discipline. It separately affirmed on the other party's cross-appeal. A referral starts an investigation; it isn't a final disciplinary decision. The court cautioned lawyers and self-represented litigants alike that the duties of candor, competence, diligence, and good-faith argument apply "whether using AI or not."
Shannon v. Shannon
Shannon v. Shannon, 322 Neb. 451 (2026), was decided October 2. The appeal came from a Sarpy County contempt order entered after a divorce decree. The father represented himself. His brief contained fictitious cases and misstatements of law that resulted from his admitted use of generative AI.
The Nebraska Rules of Professional Conduct didn't apply to him. Even so, the court held him to the same standards of candor and professionalism expected in court filings. It struck the brief, reviewed the case only for plain error, and affirmed. It also warned that in future cases, dismissal of the appeal may follow.
Neither decision bans AI or punishes every mistake. Both show why verification matters. And notice who bore the procedural consequence in Prososki. The lawyer was referred for disciplinary investigation, but it was the client's appeal that was dismissed.
How Should a Firm Protect Your Information When It Uses AI?
The useful question isn't which product a firm uses. It's what happens to your information inside that particular service, under that account and those settings.
Nebraska has advisory guidance on outside technology, though it predates generative AI. Nebraska Ethics Advisory Opinion for Lawyers No. 19-01 concluded that a lawyer may transmit and store client information using third-party cloud services. The condition is that the lawyer makes reasonable efforts to do three things:
prevent unauthorized access;
maintain confidentiality; and
guard against loss, breaches, and other technology risks.
The committee declined to adopt specific requirements, and it discussed approaches from other states.
Opinion 19-01 addresses cloud services, not generative AI. Its reasonable-safeguards approach is a useful starting point. But an AI service also requires review of its particular data uses, access, terms, and functions.
Practical questions for an AI service include the following. Some resemble vendor-review considerations discussed in Opinion 19-01; others address AI-specific risks.
Does the task need this information at all, or can it be done with less?
What do the provider's terms say about storing, reviewing, or using what's submitted, including for training models?
Who can access the inputs and outputs, including through connected apps or shared accounts?
How long is information kept, and what happens to it when the account or service ends?
Will the provider notify the user if someone else demands access to the data?
A promise that your data won't be used for training answers one of those questions. It doesn't answer the others.
Confidentiality Decisions Come Before the Draft, Not After
Careful editing can't undo a disclosure that has already happened. Consider a hypothetical guardianship matter involving medical records and family concerns about an adult's ability to make decisions. The first question is whether that information belongs in a particular tool at all. Whether the tool can produce a readable summary comes later.
Client consent alone may not authorize an upload, either. A court order, statute, or other applicable restriction may limit disclosure or require additional authorization.
Privacy Settings and Privilege Are Different Questions
Paying for an account or selecting privacy settings doesn't, by itself, establish the lawyer-client privilege. Whether an AI-related communication remains protected depends on three things:
the communication itself;
the service's role and access; and
Nebraska's privilege rules (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-503).
Voluntary disclosure of a significant part of a privileged communication can waive protection, subject to the statutory qualifications (§ 27-511). In the Nebraska sources we reviewed through October 2026, we did not identify an appellate decision applying these rules to AI tools.
Ethical confidentiality and evidentiary privilege are also different protections. Information doesn't have to be privileged for your lawyer's confidentiality duties to apply. That distinction is a big part of why we ask clients to check with us before uploading our advice. Our post on uploading your lawyer's emails or case documents to an AI tool goes further.
What Can You Ask About AI and Your Bill?
You're entitled to a meaningful explanation of how your matter is being handled. Nebraska's communication rule requires your lawyer to reasonably consult with you about how your objectives will be pursued (§ 3-501.4). Your lawyer must also promptly respond to reasonable requests for information and explain matters enough for you to make informed decisions about the representation. Fair questions include:
which tasks involve AI;
whether your information goes to an outside provider; and
who reviews the result.
Some uses may call for your informed consent, depending on what's proposed. Under Nebraska's rules, informed consent means agreement after adequate explanation of the material risks of, and reasonably available alternatives to, the proposed course of conduct (§ 3-501.0(e)).
ABA Formal Opinion 512 advises that informed consent is required before entering representation-related information into a self-learning AI tool that presents the disclosure risks the opinion discusses. That's nonbinding national guidance; Nebraska's confidentiality and communication rules govern Nebraska lawyers. It also doesn't mean every AI use requires consent, or that consent makes every disclosure appropriate.
Hourly Time Should Reflect Work Actually Done
Using AI doesn't justify billing hours no one worked, but necessary checking and revision is real legal work. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 29, 2024) explains that a lawyer billing hourly must bill for actual time spent, not the time a task would have taken without AI. It also advises that lawyers generally shouldn't charge clients for time spent learning a tool they'll use across their practice.
In Nebraska, a fee must be reasonable (§ 3-501.5(a)). The rule's commentary also warns that a lawyer shouldn't exploit an hourly arrangement by using wasteful procedures (§ 3-501.5, cmt. [5]).
Here's a hypothetical. If a lawyer spends 10 minutes setting up a task and 35 minutes checking and revising the draft, that's 45 minutes of work. It doesn't become three hours because drafting from scratch might have taken that long.
A flat fee also has to be reasonable. Efficiency may be relevant to that question, but it doesn't automatically require a reduction, and it doesn't automatically justify the same fee either. Your fee agreement describes the agreed charges, subject to Nebraska's rules on reasonable fees and expenses. For how we handle AI-assisted material clients bring to us, see Will Using AI to Draft My Legal Documents Lower My Attorney Fees in Nebraska?
Nebraska Gives You a Right to a Fee Accounting Without Charge
Nebraska's fee rule includes a client protection many people don't know about. Upon a reasonable and timely request, a lawyer must provide, "without charge, an accounting for fees and costs" claimed or previously collected (§ 3-501.5(f)).
The accounting must itemize hourly charges, costs, interest assessments, and past-due balances. For hourly charges, it must also:
describe the services performed in enough detail to give you a general sense of the work; and
note who performed them.
The rule doesn't expressly require an AI-use notation on every billing entry. You can still ask how a particular task was performed, including whether technology was involved.
Questions Worth Asking Any Nebraska Lawyer About AI
Whether you're a current client or comparing firms, these questions can help:
Does your firm use AI on client matters? For what kinds of tasks?
Who reviews AI-assisted work before it reaches me, the other side, or the court?
What happens to information your team enters into AI tools? Can the provider keep it or use it for training?
Is there information in my case that shouldn't go into any AI tool?
Does your firm have a written policy on AI use for lawyers and staff?
How does AI use affect what I'm billed?
Can I ask you to limit or avoid AI on my matter?
If I want to use AI to get organized, what's appropriate for my case?
A good answer doesn't have to be technical. It should be specific, and it should tell you who is responsible.
Using AI Yourself While Keeping Your Legal Team in the Loop
The same logic runs in the other direction. A few practical steps:
Ask first, and name the task. Summarizing medical records, drafting a message to the other party, and generating legal arguments raise very different concerns.
Organize without uploading. Ask an AI tool for a generic blank timeline template. Don't include names, case facts, documents, or legal advice. Then fill in the template privately, outside the AI tool.
Send originals with any AI version. Mark what came from you and what the tool added. "I don't remember the exact date" is useful information; see our post on polishing your notes with AI.
Question our drafts, too. If an AI-assisted draft from us gets a fact wrong or overstates what happened, tell us. Attorney review and your own factual review do different jobs.
Some of what people turn to AI for isn't legal at all. Examples include working through a hard conversation with a co-parent or getting your thoughts in order before a meeting. For our family law clients, Zachary W. Anderson Law offers in-house co-parenting and divorce coaching as part of the services we offer to our clients at no additional fee. Coaching complements legal representation. It doesn't replace legal advice or professional mental-health care.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn't it a double standard for my lawyer to use AI but ask me to check first?
It would be if the concern were the technology itself. The difference is the framework around the use. Your lawyer's work is subject to professional duties, attorney review, and accountability to you and the court; a consumer tool you use on your own isn't. You're entitled to ask your lawyer how that framework works on your matter.
Can I ask the firm to limit or avoid AI on my matter?
Yes. Raise it early and explain whether your concern is confidentiality, particular tasks, or any AI use at all. Asking doesn't automatically change the engagement terms, so discuss what limits are feasible and document any agreement. Because AI features are now built into ordinary software, it helps to be specific about which tools or functions are covered.
Will my bill show when AI was used?
Billing practices vary, and Nebraska's rules don't expressly require an AI-use notation on each entry. You can request an accounting of fees and costs without charge. For hourly work, it must describe the services and note who performed them. If you want to know how a particular task was handled, ask.
Does attorney review mean a lawyer reads every word a tool produces?
The review required depends on the task and its intended use. Before AI-assisted legal work is sent, filed, or relied on, the responsible attorney must review it enough to verify its factual and legal substance. Your own factual review supplements that responsibility; it doesn't replace it.
What should I do if I find a mistake in a draft from my lawyer?
Tell your lawyer promptly and explain what's wrong. You know facts your lawyer may not, and you're the one who signs an affidavit or verifies discovery answers. Catching an error before a document is signed or filed is far easier than fixing it afterward.
Does this matter for estate planning, guardianship, or probate?
Yes. Estate planning, probate, guardianship, and conservatorship matters can involve sensitive medical, financial, and family information. The same confidentiality and legal-review questions apply.
I already put information about my case into an AI tool. What now?
Tell your lawyer promptly which service you used and what you submitted. Avoid adding more case information while you get advice. Don't delete the existing material, because preservation obligations may apply. Our post on whether the other side can get your AI chats explains what to keep and what to expect.
Talk With Us About AI and Your Representation
You're entitled to understand how your legal work is prepared and how your attorney evaluates it, including how technology, information protection, and fees fit in. Existing clients can raise these questions with the attorney handling their matter. If you're considering representation for a divorce, custody, guardianship, probate, estate planning, or civil litigation matter, you can schedule a consultation.
Educational Disclaimer
This article provides general educational information about Nebraska law and is not legal advice for any particular situation. It reflects sources reviewed through October 2026 and may not reflect later changes in statutes, court rules, or court decisions. Outcomes depend on the facts, the applicable law, and the court. Reading this article or contacting Zachary W. Anderson Law does not create an attorney-client relationship. Contacting us does not mean we represent you or will take action for you. Representation begins only after a conflict check is completed, the firm accepts the engagement, and a written engagement agreement is signed. Please don't send confidential information until we've told you how to do so, and don't delay seeking advice about a deadline while waiting for a response.