Insights for California Family Lawyers
Using divorce software under California ethics rules: competence, confidentiality, and limited scope
Yes, California family lawyers may use intake and form software. They must understand it (Rule 1.1), vet the vendor (Rule 1.6 / Opinion 2023-208), review output, and document limited-scope work (CRC 5.425). Software does not practice law. A non-lawyer site that selects forms and strategy for a consumer might.
· FamilyLawyer.software
California family lawyers already use software. You have been using it since DissoMaster, and you are still using it now that DissoMaster is dead. The ethics question in 2026 is not whether a computer may touch an FL-150. It is whether you understand the computer, whether the vendor is fit to hold the file, whether you reviewed the output, and whether the engagement is actually limited-scope or just advertised that way.
This is not a second unbundled-packages article. If you want flat-fee product design, that is a different post. This one is the rules: Rule 1.1, Rule 1.6 / Formal Opinion 2023-208, CRC 5.425, and Business and Professions Code section 6400.
Software is a tool, not a license
Software does not practice law. A licensed lawyer using software still does. A non-lawyer site that selects forms and strategies for a consumer might be practicing law, or at least walking the LDA/UPL line in BPC 6400. That distinction is the whole game. Keep it in your head when a demo starts talking about “empowering the client to file.”
The State Bar’s UPL page is blunt: only attorneys can practice law in California, and UPL is a crime. You do not get a software exception. You also do not commit UPL by using a form engine under your license. The risk sits in who is directing the representation and who is choosing the remedies.
Rule 1.1: competence includes the technology you use
Rule 1.1(a) still says you shall not intentionally, recklessly, with gross negligence, or repeatedly fail to perform legal services with competence. Comment [1], added effective 22 March 2021, says the duties in the rule include keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, “including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” That sentence is now in the CalBar PDF of the rule. It is not optional CLE marketing.
The California Lawyers Association Ethics Spotlight (David Samani, May 2021) named the family-law example: “family law practice’s use of software to aid in the process of calculating guidelines for child and spousal support.” If CLA is putting support calculators under Comment [1], you do not get to plead ignorance of the tool generating your FL-150.
What “keep abreast” means in this practice
It does not mean you become a systems engineer. It means you know what the tool does (a PMS is not a form engine; a calculator is not a judgment generator), you know current revision dates, and you review output. FL-700 went live 1 January 2026; if your library still thinks every case starts with FL-100, that is a competence fact. A lawyer who lets a questionnaire dump numbers onto FL-150 without reconciling the FL-142 is not using technology. They are ignoring it. Rule 1.1(c) still gives you an off-ramp: associate, learn, or refer. “The vendor said it was plug-and-play” is not one of the three options.
Rule 1.6 and Formal Opinion 2023-208: cloud intake is not a free pass
FL-150 and FL-142 are not a contact form. They carry Social Security-adjacent identifiers, bank and brokerage detail, tax returns, and sometimes abuse facts. Rule 1.6 and Business and Professions Code section 6068(e) do not relax because the client typed the numbers on a phone at 11 p.m.
Formal Opinion 2023-208 is framed as a remote-work opinion. Read past the headline. The committee’s cloud-vendor paragraph is the part that applies to every family-law intake portal:
- Investigate the provider’s reputation, history, security, and backup measures.
- Limit access to confidential information.
- Review the terms of service for data security and breach handling.
- Periodically review and monitor the provider’s policies, practices, and procedures so they remain compatible with your duties.
If you cannot evaluate the security of the technology, the opinion says you must consult someone who can. “I clicked Accept” is not diligence.
A vendor-diligence checklist that maps to the opinion
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Where is the data hosted, and who are the subprocessors? | 2023-208: investigate security and backup; know who else can see the file. |
| Does the vendor train models on customer data? | Rule 1.6. A disclosure questionnaire that becomes someone else’s training corpus is a confidentiality event. See also ABA Formal Opinion 512 on self-learning GAI. |
| What do the terms of service say about breach notice, export, and deletion? | 2023-208: review ToS for security and breach handling; keep reasonable access and control of client data. |
| Who can download or file? | If the client can push papers to court, you have an appearance-and-supervision problem, not just a UX choice. |
| MFA, access logs, employee access? | Reasonable measures. 2023-208 discusses two-factor authentication in the remote-work setting for a reason. |
| Will every client email also go to the firm? | Rule 1.4 communication plus Rule 5.3 supervision of the nonlawyer tool. |
Data & Divorce (May 2025) puts it in family-law English: do not let tools train on client data.
Review of output is non-delegable
You can let the client complete a guided interview. You can let a paralegal assemble the PDF batch. You cannot let either of them be the last lawyer who looked at the forms. Rule 5.3 makes you responsible for nonlawyer assistants, including independent contractors and, in the 2023-208 framing, technology vendors whose conduct has to stay compatible with your duties.
On family forms the failure is not a blank caption. It is the FL-150 that does not match the FL-142. See FL-150 / FL-142 from client intake.
If the tool includes generative AI: ABA Formal Opinion 512
ABA Formal Opinion 512 (29 July 2024) is not binding in California, and it is not a California opinion. It is the national framework every competence discussion now runs through when the product has a GenAI module — including AI mediation or AI drafting bolted onto a divorce interview. The holding that matters for this post: there is no AI exception to the Model Rules. Competence, confidentiality, communication, supervision, candor, and reasonable fees all still apply. Review GAI output, including analysis and citations, before you submit it. Boilerplate consent is not informed consent to put client confidences into a self-learning system.
If the vendor added a chatbot that drafts the MSA or “reviews” the FL-150, you are in 512 territory whether they call it AI or not. You do not need to wait for a California GenAI opinion to review the forms.
Limited scope: CRC 5.425, FL-950, and ghostwriting
Unbundled family work is not a gray area. CRC 5.425 defines limited-scope representation, splits it into noticed and undisclosed, and gives you the forms. Package design and fees live in a different article; this one is how the court is told what you are doing. Practitioner walkthroughs exist; read the rule first.
Noticed versus undisclosed
Noticed limited scope: serve and file Notice of Limited Scope Representation (FL-950). Until a substitution (MC-050), a final Notice of Completion (FL-955), or an order relieving you, you get served only on the issues in the FL-950. Completion without a signed substitution is a procedure (proposed FL-955, FL-955-INFO, FL-956, then final FL-955 or a hearing). Software will not run it. Your retainer has to match the notice.
Undisclosed representation: you draft or assist in drafting, you do not appear. Rule 5.425(f)(1) says you are not required to disclose inside the document that you helped prepare it. That is the ghostwriting rule California family lawyers actually have, not the folklore version from a listserv.
Your name on the forms
Rule 5.425(f)(2) is the exception people skip. If the litigant seeks a court order for attorney’s fees incurred as a result of document preparation, they must disclose the attorney’s name, the time involved or other billing basis, the tasks, and the amount billed. Ghostwriting is allowed. Invisible fee requests are not. And 5.425(f)(3) says the nondisclosure rule does not apply if you have made a general appearance or contracted to appear on an issue in the pleadings.
Name on the forms is not required for pure document assistance unless you are asking the other side to pay for it. If you are on FL-950, you are noticed; stop talking about ghostwriting.
The UPL line: BPC 6400 versus lawyer-supervised software
Business and Professions Code section 6400 defines a legal document assistant as a non-exempt person who, for compensation, provides self-help service to a member of the public representing themselves. Section 6400(g) is the wall: an LDA may not advise on rights, remedies, defenses, options, selection of forms, or strategies. Registration is required. The chapter sunsets 1 January 2030 unless extended; the prohibition is current law.
A California lawyer using software under a retainer is not an LDA. A non-lawyer website that interviews a consumer, chooses the petition path, and emits a filled FL-100 is standing on the 6400(g) side of that wall. Do not build your limited-scope practice on that model and call it lawyering.
Keep the consumer paths straight. Hello Divorce is a consumer product with optional unbundled California attorneys and a Trusted Partner program — it competes for the client, not as your work-product stack. DivorceWriter, CompleteCase, and similar B2C sites sell an interview that produces Judicial Council forms with no attorney of record. Tyler Guide & File is the court’s own SRL interview. Lawyer-supervised software sits on the other side of that line only when the lawyer assigns the work, reviews it, and the client cannot file behind the lawyer’s back.
White-label portals under the firm name
A white-label portal under your brand, with your engagement letter, is allowed: the client should think they hired you. That is how you stay on the lawyer side of BPC 6400. Formal Opinion 2023-208 still wants a retainer in front of the interview and a conflicts screen before the portal collects a life history. Rule 1.2 is the scope rule you draft against; CRC 5.425 is how the court is told. If those two disagree, neither document will save you from the other.
Architecture that matches the rules
One worked example, because this site sells one: Online Divorce Lawyer is a white-label California uncontested interview. The vendor FAQ describes a control-panel model: the lawyer creates the client account and assigns the password; every client email is copied to the firm; the client has no download access; the lawyer reviews the filing batch — including, the vendor says, an FL-700 set — before anything is filed.
Map that to the rules, as architecture, not as a testimonial. Rule 1.1: the lawyer is the filer; the client cannot skip the review queue. Rule 1.6 / 2023-208: access is credentialed by the firm — and you still read the vendor’s security terms. CRC 5.425: limited-scope work can sit on that queue because the packet never leaves until the lawyer says so (FL-950 if you appear; 5.425(f) if you do not). BPC 6400: the consumer hired a lawyer using a tool, not a non-lawyer selecting forms.
That is existence proof of a design that can fit the rules — not an audit of encryption, subprocessors, or form coverage. If your current stack lets the client download a packet and walk it into the clerk while you are in trial, you have a 5.425-and-1.1 problem no branding will fix. Document the scope. Vet the vendor. Read the forms. Stay the lawyer.