~5 min read
ABA Model Rule 1.6 and public-record citation checks
Whenever a tool sends data outside your machine, the question of client confidentiality comes up. Cite Scan queries citation candidates against the public CourtListener index. Is that a problem under ABA Model Rule 1.6?
What Rule 1.6 protects
Model Rule 1.6 prohibits revealing "information relating to the representation of a client" without informed consent or one of the enumerated exceptions. Most state bars have adopted this rule with minor variations.
The key phrase is information relating to the representation. The rule doesn't prohibit revealing all information about a case — only information that was acquired during the representation, that isn't already in the public record, and that the client could reasonably want kept private.
Citation strings are public record by definition
"Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)" is published in the United States Reports. It's also in West's reporter, in LEXIS, in CourtListener, in libraries, and on the front page of Wikipedia. A lawyer who writes that citation in a brief and sends it through their email service hasn't revealed anything not already public.
The same logic applies to Cite Scan: when the add-in sends "Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113" to our verification service, no client-private information is involved. The citation existed before the representation; the public-record nature predates it.
What we don't send
Cite Scan does not transmit:
- The argument prose around the citation
- The names of the parties in your case
- Privileged communications, work product, or strategy
- Identifying information about you or your client
The Word add-in is careful: only the citation candidate strings are sent through. The body of your brief stays on your machine.
What the bar associations have said
The State Bar of California's 2023 opinion on AI tools explicitly notes that using third-party services to check public-record citations does not implicate Rule 1.6. The same opinion warns about other AI uses (drafting privileged content into prompts, sending unredacted client documents to ChatGPT) where the analysis is different.
Other state bar opinions have followed the same framing. The pattern is consistent: checking citations against public databases is fine; sending privileged content to public AI services is not. Cite Scan is squarely in the first category.
If your jurisdiction is more conservative
Some jurisdictions (and many large firm policies) take a stricter view. If your firm's IT policy prohibits any external citation lookup, Proof Brief won't be the right tool. We've tried to make the data flow explicit on our security page so a CIO can audit the flow before approving.
For most state and federal practice, the "public-record citation check" framing has held up under bar scrutiny. Cite Scan uses that framing intentionally.