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Canada's law-society AI guidance: BC, Ontario, Alberta, and the CBA
The version record of Canadian law-society generative-AI guidance — LSBC (2023), the LSO white paper (2024), Alberta's Rules of Engagement, and the CBA toolkit.
Canada’s law societies were among the first regulators anywhere to guide lawyers on generative AI. This is the dated record of the main provincial guidance and the Canadian Bar Association toolkit — the professional-conduct layer that sits alongside the court practice directions. None prohibits AI; all turn on competence, confidentiality, and verification.
The chronology
| Body | Document | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law Society of British Columbia | Guidance on Professional Responsibility and Generative AI | 2023 | Current |
| Law Society of Ontario | White Paper: Licensee use of generative AI (+ obligations companion) | April 2024 | Current |
| Law Society of Alberta | Gen AI Rules of Engagement for Canadian Lawyers | updated March 2025 | Current |
| Canadian Bar Association | Ethics of AI for the Legal Practitioner | undated | Current |
British Columbia
The LSBC’s guidance, published in 2023, is the earliest Canadian law-society document of its kind. It requires competence with the tool before client use; confidentiality, with client-identifying information ideally omitted from prompts and, where that is not possible, fully informed written client consent after disclosure of the risks; candour with clients about how AI is used; and a check of whether the court or tribunal requires attribution of AI use.
Ontario
The LSO’s April 2024 white paper, with its companion “Generative AI: Your professional obligations,” sets out six areas of professional conduct: competence, confidentiality, supervision, the licensee–client relationship, fees and disbursements, and discrimination and harassment. It includes a dedicated section on disclosing generative-AI use to clients.
Alberta
The LSA’s “Gen AI Rules of Engagement,” a living resource last updated March 2025, is built on three principles — caution, reliance, and verification. It requires that authorities come only from authoritative sources such as CanLII and court sites, that all AI output be independently verified with meaningful human control, and that privileged or client data never be entered into public tools. It usefully aggregates the disclosure position across Canadian courts.
The Bar Council layer
The CBA’s “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence for the Legal Practitioner,” part of its Beyond the Prompt initiative, frames the issue at the ethics level: consult your jurisdiction’s Code of Conduct and the applicable court notices, adopt AI-use policies, and treat the risks as evolving. Its publication date is not stated on the resource.