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State Bar of New Mexico

medium confidence · updated 2026-09-16

New Mexico's state bar, established 1886 and based in Albuquerque, which administers annual license renewal and MCLE compliance for its members, publishes the Bar Bulletin, and through its Ethics Advisory Committee issued Formal Opinion 2024-004 on lawyers' use of generative AI. Its Client Protection Fund is the payee of the $5,000 sanction in the 2026 Aarons contempt order.

Contents

The State Bar of New Mexico, established in 1886 and headquartered at the State Bar Center, 5121 Masthead St. NE, Albuquerque, administers annual license renewal and Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) compliance for its members, is governed by a Board of Bar Commissioners, and publishes the Bar Bulletin. Its record on artificial intelligence consists chiefly of Formal Opinion 2024-004 of its Ethics Advisory Committee, issued September 24, 2024, on the use of generative AI in legal practice (State Bar of New Mexico Formal Ethics Advisory Opinion 2024-004 — Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law).

Organization and governance

The Bar Bulletin masthead for November 27, 2024 gives the State Bar's establishment as 1886 and lists its officers as President Erinna M. "Erin" Atkins, President-Elect Aja N. Brooks, Secretary-Treasurer Allison H. Block-Chavez and Immediate Past President Benjamin I. Sherman, with Richard Spinello as Executive Director. The same issue reports that the Board of Bar Commissioners met on October 24, 2024, elected Allison H. Block-Chavez as President-Elect and Lucy H. Sinkular as Secretary-Treasurer for 2025, approved the 2025 budget and standing committees, discussed proposed amendments to Rule 24-101(A) NMRA, and reappointed Judge Linda Vanzi and appointed Ellen Leitzer to three-year terms on the Client Protection Fund Commission. The 2025 budget disclosure was prepared under Article VII, Section 7.2 of the State Bar Bylaws and was open to written challenge until December 2, 2024. Annual license renewal and MCLE requirements were due February 3, 2025, to be completed through the State Bar's website (Source: sbnm.org, pp. 5, 6).

The Bar Bulletin (ISSN 1062-6611) is the State Bar's official publication, so described on its cover, distributed twice a month; members receive it as part of their annual licensing fees. The issue's own call for article submissions describes its readership as "over 8,000 State Bar of New Mexico members" (Source: sbnm.org, pp. 1, 5, 16).

Ethics Advisory Committee

The Ethics Advisory Committee is, in its own description, "constituted for the purpose of advising lawyers on the application of the New Mexico Rules of Professional Conduct." It advises in part through published formal opinions, which it describes as "advisory only, and ... not binding on lawyers, the disciplinary board, or any tribunal," and as the consensus of the members who considered the question (State Bar of New Mexico Formal Ethics Advisory Opinion 2024-004 — Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law).

Formal Opinion 2024-004, "Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law," concludes that New Mexico lawyers may use generative AI and construes ten Rules of Professional Conduct for that use. Its requirements include independent verification of "all research, citations, and analysis conducted by the AI tool" in court filings, without relying on the same tool to check its own output; withholding confidential information from tools that share inputs with third parties or train on them; billing only time actually spent rather than time saved; independent conflict checks where a tool retains prior client information; firm policies and training before use; and discussion with the client where AI plays a significant role in the final product, the client asks, or use requires disclosing confidential data. The opinion was republished in the Bar Bulletin of November 27, 2024 (State Bar of New Mexico Formal Ethics Advisory Opinion 2024-004 — Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law).

In Dehghani v. Castro (D.N.M. May 9, 2025), a federal district court quoted the opinion's candor and verification passages when upholding an order that a lawyer who filed a brief citing non-existent cases self-report to the New Mexico and Texas state bar disciplinary boards. The court described the New Mexico and Texas issuing bodies as "[t]he ethics disciplinary bodies in both New Mexico and Texas" (Source: caselaw.findlaw.com).

The December 2024 legal education calendar in the same Bulletin issue lists "The AI Edge: Enhancing Legal Practice with ChatGPT" and "Ethics in the Age of AI: Navigating the Legal Landscape with ChatGPT," both webinars on December 13 from the Center for Legal Education of NMSBF, and "Interface of A.I. and Prof. Conduct," a December 3 webcast from the University of New Mexico School of Law (Source: sbnm.org, pp. 8–9).

Client Protection Fund

In its 2026 dispositional order holding attorney Stephen D. Aarons in direct contempt for filing a ChatGPT-assisted brief containing fabricated witnesses and testimony, the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered, as the sanction for contempt, payment of $5,000 to the State Bar of New Mexico Client Protection Fund within thirty days, with written notification to the Court when paid (In re Stephen D. Aarons — Dispositional Order of Direct Contempt (N.M. Sup. Ct., 2026)). The order does not cite Formal Opinion 2024-004.

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