At the 22nd Jerry A. Kasner Estate Planning Symposium, speakers framed artificial intelligence as moving from a productivity tool into a matter of professional responsibility and courtroom defensibility for trusts and estates practitioners.
Firms should adopt clear AI-use policies, implement citation-review procedures and document oversight and verification steps.
AI-driven tools are changing discovery: machine-learning review can cut costs but must be defensible through transparent search parameters and collection processes.
The 22nd Annual Jerry A. Kasner Estate Planning Symposium (Aug. 27–28) identified artificial intelligence as the central issue for trusts and estates practice. Presenters and panelists argued that AI is no longer just a productivity aid. Courts, regulators and bar associations are concentrating on how attorneys use AI and assigning attorneys full responsibility for AI-assisted work product.
AI as a professional-responsibility issue
Recent case law, draft California legislation and state bar guidance repeatedly make the same point: use of AI does not shift an attorney's duties. Attorneys are responsible for accuracy, confidentiality and the legal sufficiency of documents even when those documents were drafted or assisted by AI tools. Transparency with the court about AI use is generally preferable to attempting to conceal it.
Speakers noted that practitioners may face affirmative obligations going forward, such as verifying authorities that an AI provided, disclosing certain AI assistance, and maintaining documentation of oversight. These are not theoretical risks: they appear in multiple sources of guidance and are already shaping litigation strategy and court expectations.
Practical steps firms should take now
These steps help manage ethical risk and create a defensible record if an opposing party or the court questions the provenance or reliability of a filing.
AI's role in discovery and document review
On the litigation side, the conference emphasized that AI and machine-learning tools are changing how teams handle large collections of communications and documents. Tools for technology-assisted review can speed identification of relevant materials across email, texts, Teams chats, cloud platforms and social media.
Those tools reduce cost and time, but presenters warned that the process must be defensible. That means being prepared to explain and justify search terms, custodians selected, collection parameters and the machine-learning model's tuning. Transparency about methodology and retention of logs or artifacts that show how the tool produced its results will help withstand challenges in discovery disputes.
Estate planners and litigators should treat AI as a managed risk and an efficiency opportunity. Establish policies now, require human verification of AI output, document oversight steps, and be ready to explain collection and review methods when AI tools touch discovery. These measures align day-to-day practice with the expectations that courts and regulatory bodies are starting to articulate.
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