A bill registered in the Romanian Senate as B563/2026 would define legal advice by what it does rather than the technology used, and would let the lawyers' union seek court orders against unauthorised online legal services

What is the bill and where is it?

The Senate file lists the instrument as a legislative proposal registered on 14 October 2026 with the number B563/2026. The Senate is the first chamber and the stage is registered for debate. The log shows the text sent for opinions on 19 October to the Economic and Social Council, the Fiscal Council, the Legislative Council (term 18 November 2026) and the Superior Council of Magistracy, with the Government asked for its view, and to the Competition Council on 26 October.

The log also records that the initiators asked for the urgent procedure on 14 October, while the summary field on the same page reads No for urgent procedure. We could not tell which is current. The list of initiators was amended on 26 October and 2 November.

How would legal advice be defined?

Proposed Article 3^1 would define legal consultancy as a personalised service giving an opinion or advice, based on applying legal rules, on a request about a concrete legal situation, so that the client can decide future action. General legal information, documentation, research, publishing and standardised legal tools would fall outside, to the extent they do not involve legal analysis of a concrete situation.

The third paragraph carries the technology point. In the original Romanian it says the classification follows the definition indiferent de mijlocul sau tehnologia utilizată pentru furnizarea acesteia, that is, regardless of the means or technology used to provide it.

The operative text we read does not use the words artificial intelligence. The statement of reasons does. It says LegalTech platforms and AI systems make the boundary between general information and individual answers more important, because the same tool can give both, and it describes the test as functional.

What would the online enforcement route look like?

Proposed Article 25^1 would allow UNBR, on finding that activities in breach of the law are carried out, promoted, offered or intermediated through online services, to ask a court to order the breach to stop and, where an intermediary must act, to issue an order under Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. It could also seek an information order under Article 10 to identify the person responsible.

The text would have the courts hear such requests urgently, set the first hearing within at most 5 days of registration, make the judgment enforceable and allow only an appeal, within 5 days of communication. The statement of reasons says the court, not UNBR, checks the legal basis and proportionality and that UNBR gains no power to issue orders itself.

What else is in the text that touches software?

Article 3 para 2 would reserve the listed activities to lawyers, except those expressly given to other legal professions. Amended Article 59 would extend the criminal provision on unauthorised use of the title avocat to any name or expression likely to mislead the public about being a lawyer, including through domain names, sites, platforms, social networks and apps.

The Civil Code part would add that where the law requires a writing under private signature for validity or proof, the document is drawn up by a lawyer unless the law provides otherwise, with no nullity unless the law expressly says so. We have not tested how this would meet automated drafting tools, and the text does not address them.

Article III would give authorities and institutions 60 days after entry into force to align subordinate and sectoral rules, notably on proof of a lawyer's mandate, access to public buildings and professional secrecy.

What could a provider or counsel take from it now?

This section is our inference. If the proposal were adopted in this form, a LegalTech provider in Romania would need to judge whether its output applies law to a user's concrete facts and gives an opinion. A tool that does so would be doing the reserved activity whether a person or a model produces the answer, on the text's own technology-neutral test.

The text has several steps still to clear, and the opinions requested could lead to changes. A sensible use today is to inventory which products give case-specific answers to Romanian users.

What we did not verify

What we opened: the Senate file page for B563/2026, the initiators' text (6-page PDF) and the statement of reasons (12-page PDF), both as extracted by our scraper, and the UNBR release through a search result. Article numbers, deadlines and the registration number come from the Senate documents.

What we did not open: the Legislative Council's opinion, the Senate page's "Opinii trimise (66)" counter, which is larger than the six dated opinion requests it lists and which we could not reconcile, any Chamber of Deputies file, the Government's view, and any later amended text. We did not verify the Senate file's initiator list against the names in the UNBR release, which differ in places, or which version of the list applies after the 26 October and 2 November changes.

What we refuse to claim: that the proposal will pass, that it conflicts or does not conflict with the EU AI Act, that any named product would be caught, or how a court would apply the technology-neutral test. Informational analysis for working professionals, not legal advice. Confirm how any rule applies to your situation with qualified counsel.

Related briefings

• Romania AI Act competent authorities and ANCOM
• CCBE guide on generative AI for EU lawyers
• Brazil OAB on lawyer AI supervision and ethics
• Europe AI regulation
• AI Regulation News hub