Colorado's New Non-Prosecution Policy Seeks to Balance Innovation, Access, and Consumer Safety
Last month, leaders at the intersection of legal aid and technology gathered at the annual LSC Innovations in Technology Conference to discuss technology's role in expanding access to legal services. IAALS presented alongside Jeff Ward, Director of the Duke Center on Law & Technology, and Aubrie Souza, Principal Court Management Consultant at the National Center for State Courts, on a new topic for the conference: non-prosecution policies that shield developers of legal-help technology tools from unauthorized practice of law (UPL) prosecution. The session highlighted a quiet but important step toward regulatory reform taken in IAALS' own backyard.
In September 2025, after several months of committee discussion, the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel (OARC) adopted a first-of-its-kind Non-Prosecution Policy Regarding the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) by Nonlawyers, which deprioritizes UPL prosecution of developers of certain technology-enabled tools. The policy is intended to help technology platforms expand access to legal services while maintaining consumer safeguards.
"OARC recognizes that individuals who are not authorized to practice law may provide legal information that is tailored to someone’s circumstances, and in doing so, may be asked to provide more substantive legal guidance or help an individual perform certain tasks relating to a legal matter," OARC writes in the policy. "Sometimes the additional legal guidance is helpful and poses little risk to the recipient of legal information, though higher-risk situations warrant more caution."
Technology, OARC notes, can provide that helpful guidance through services like document drafting and process guidance, though that technology can also pose risks. Against these backdrop considerations of increasing access and balancing risk, OARC proposes its new policy.
Risk-Based Oversight
The OARC policy clarifies that, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, the office generally will refrain from bringing UPL enforcement actions against certain nonlawyer providers—particularly technology platforms—when specified consumer-protection safeguards are in place. These include:
- Lawyer supervision or quality-assurance oversight
- Clear disclosures that the provider is not a licensed lawyer
- Transparent privacy and confidentiality practices
- User acknowledgment of the nature and limits of the services
- Absence of any evidence of misconduct from the nonlawyer involved, such as misleading, false, or deceptive statements about services or harm to consumers of the nonlawyer’s services
Importantly, the policy does not apply to legal services for matters involving incarceration or juvenile detention, safety, or custodial decisions.
OARC notes that this policy is "intended to document internal OARC practices and does not have the force of law," and that it does not provide a "safe harbor" to those unauthorized to practice law in Colorado. The policy is structured as a three-year pilot, with an evaluation planned to assess its impact.
Immediacy Versus Certainty
For jurisdictions considering regulatory reform, the policy offers a potential model: rather than waiting for comprehensive legislative or rule changes, regulators can use existing authority to adopt measured, transparent enforcement policies that create space for responsible innovation while preserving consumer safeguards. While permanent rule changes provide more certainty for tool developers, those changes can take years to finalize and adopt. They also require significant buy-in from stakeholders in environments where UPL revisions are often controversial. Non-prosecution policies can be a first and important step in obtaining that buy-in by allowing states to carefully experiment and gather data so they can definitively answer these important questions about the impact on consumers.
Looking Ahead
Colorado's policy may be the first of its kind in the country, but as other states consider how to address the two largest questions looming over legal services—technology and access—others may soon follow. Through our collaboration with the Duke Center on Law & Technology (DCLT), IAALS is helping states explore non-prosecution policies as a potential regulatory lever for increasing access. In 2025, IAALS and DCLT hosted a three-part webinar series on AI, UPL, and access to justice, followed by a series of workshops with regulators and experts to discuss the role of non-prosecution policies like Colorado’s. Based on Colorado’s experience and insights from these workshops, IAALS and DCLT are developing a toolkit to help states jump-start non-prosecution policies in their own jurisdictions. We anticipate releasing the toolkit this spring.
To learn more about the role of UPL in the access-to-justice crisis and how regulatory reform can create a path forward, read our report Regulating AI in Consumer Facing Legal Services, watch the webinar recordings, and check out our Regulating AI Knowledge Center.
