Generative AI is reshaping legal practice as law firms invest in AI technology
and prepare for a future where AI agents operate alongside human lawyers.
While such a future raises numerous ethical concerns, it also opens new oppor
tunities for ethical practice. This article explores the potential for AI agents to
improve ethical decision-making within legal practices. We start by defining
key concepts such as AI agents and agentic workflows. We then provide a brief
overview of the role of ethics counsel in law firms and discuss critical behav
ioral challenges in the human practice of law. Finally, we introduce a new
model of AI agents acting as dedicated ethics counsel. These agents should be
specialized, accountable, and systematic to provide comprehensive ethical guid
ance in a firm’s legal workflows. These ethical agents have the potential to miti
gate the human biases in traditional legal practice and offer an efficient and
scalable approach to ensure ethical compliance in an increasingly AI-driven
legal landscape. To demonstrate this model, we end with real-world examples
of what initial ethical agent contributions could look like in practice.

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