Massachusetts’ Pending AI Bill Would Reach Certain AI Systems Used in Decisions Concerning Legal Services

H.97 remains in House Ways and Means, with no new official action since December 2025. If enacted, the proposal would impose risk-management, disclosure, and anti-discrimination duties on certain developers and deployers of high-risk AI systems.

Massachusetts lawmakers are still considering a broad proposal to regulate certain high-risk artificial intelligence systems, including systems used in legal services. But the measure—H.97, House Docket 4053—is not law, and its last recorded legislative action came nearly nine months ago.

The bill was filed on January 17, 2025, and referred to the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity on February 27, 2025. The committee held a public hearing that included H.97 on September 11, 2025, according to the Legislature’s hearing record and archived webcast.

On December 24, 2025, the Legislature recorded H.97 as “Accompanied by H94,” reported it favorably from committee, and referred it to House Ways and Means. As of September 20, 2026, the bill remains pending there, with no later official action listed in its legislative history.

What H.97 would cover

The proposal would regulate “high-risk” AI systems that make, or are a substantial factor in making, consequential decisions. A consequential decision under the bill may concern education enrollment or an education opportunity, employment or an employment opportunity, a financial or lending service, an essential government service, health-care services, housing, insurance, or a legal service.

That scope matters because the bill is not confined to consumer-facing chatbots or generative-AI tools. It is aimed at systems that can materially affect a person’s access to services, opportunities, or benefits in consequential settings.

The bill’s text would place obligations on both developers and deployers of covered systems. Among other provisions, it would require:

• developer documentation about a system’s intended use, known limitations, and risk-management practices;
• deployer risk-management programs and recurring impact assessments;
• measures intended to prevent unlawful discrimination;
• notices to consumers before a high-risk AI system makes, or is a substantial factor in making, a consequential decision concerning them;
• explanations for certain adverse decisions;
• correction and appeal opportunities in specified circumstances;
• public disclosures concerning covered systems; and
• general disclosure when consumers interact with an AI system, unless it would be obvious to a reasonable person that the person is interacting with an AI system.

The bill expressly includes a “legal service” among the areas in which a consequential decision may occur. That does not mean every AI tool used by a law firm or other legal-services organization would be covered. Coverage would turn on the bill’s definitions, exclusions, and exemptions—including whether the system makes, or is a substantial factor in making, a decision that has a material legal or similarly significant effect on the provision or denial of, or cost or terms for, a legal service to a Massachusetts resident.

Enforcement would rest with the Attorney General

H.97 would assign enforcement exclusively to the Massachusetts Attorney General. A violation would constitute an unfair trade practice under Chapter 93A, the state’s consumer-protection law.

The proposal expressly states that it would not create a private right of action. If enacted, deployers would have to notify Massachusetts-resident consumers before a covered consequential decision and, following an adverse decision, give them opportunities to correct incorrect personal data and appeal. Human review on appeal would be required only if technically feasible, and the appeal opportunity itself would be subject to the bill’s best-interest and life-or-safety exception. H.97 would not authorize a private action under the proposed chapter.

No current compliance deadline

Because H.97 has not passed, it imposes no current legal duties and has no operative compliance date.

As drafted, the bill says it would take effect no later than six months after passage, and many substantive obligations would have to be satisfied no later than six months after the law’s effective date. Those timelines are contingent on enactment and should not be treated as active deadlines.

The H.94 reference does not establish a merger

The December 2025 history entry linking H.97 to H.94 is worth reading carefully. The Legislature’s records show that H.97 was “Accompanied by H94,” then received a favorable committee report and a referral to House Ways and Means.

That sequence reasonably indicates that H.97 was the measure that procedurally advanced at that point. It does not, however, establish that H.94 was merged into H.97, incorporated into it, or rewritten as part of it. A stronger conclusion would require an official committee report, executive-session record, poll documentation, or comparable legislative material explaining the relationship between the two bills.

For now, H.97 is best understood as a pending Massachusetts AI-governance proposal—one with potentially significant reach, including into legal services, but without present legal effect.