NYC Bar Opinion 2026-2: Consent Required Before AI Recording of Non-Client Calls — Practice-Area Implications

The NYC Bar Professional Ethics Committee issued Formal Opinion 2026-2 on August 5, addressing AI tools used to record, transcribe, and summarise calls between attorneys and non-client parties — opposing counsel, witnesses, business contacts, regulators. The opinion concludes that attorneys must obtain consent from all parties to a call before recording it for AI transcription or summarisation, consistent with client call requirements, and that the analysis varies by practice area context (litigation, transactional, regulatory). For law firms that have deployed AI meeting tools (Otter.ai, Fireflies, Microsoft Copilot Meeting Recap, Harvey's call intelligence features) across attorney workflows, Opinion 2026-2 creates a specific compliance checkpoint: consent protocols must be in place not just for client calls but for all professional calls involving AI transcription. Firms that have not audited their AI meeting tool deployment against state bar guidance on recording consent are carrying unquantified ethics exposure in their daily workflow.