Alabama State Bar Formalises AI Ethics Guidance — Billing for AI Time Reviewed, Not Time Saved

The Alabama State Bar issued Formal Opinion 2026-01 on AI use in legal practice (reported by National Law Review on August 4, following the Reuters July 23 summary) — joining a growing cohort of state bars that have formalised their positions on AI and professional conduct. Alabama's opinion does not create new ethical duties; it recontextualises existing obligations under competence, confidentiality, supervision, communication, and reasonable fees. The billing provision is the most operationally specific: lawyers using AI cannot charge clients for hours saved by the technology but can bill for time spent reviewing and exercising judgment over AI-generated work. For law firm billing teams and managing partners, Alabama's billing rule formalises what ABA Opinion 512 implied: AI efficiency gains must be passed through to clients as cost savings, not captured as revenue. As state bar opinions accumulate — the Vorp Labs tracker identifies California, Texas, Illinois, Utah, and Alabama as having substantive rules in force — the operational complexity for multi-state practices increases with each new jurisdiction.