Federal Judge Denies OAB-SP Bid to Halt Enter’s Legal AI but Orders Records Kept Since 2024
A federal judge in São Paulo has refused to halt the legal services of Enter, an artificial intelligence company that works with lawyers and law firms, in a public civil action brought by the São Paulo section of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB-SP), CNN Brasil reported on October 22. In a decision issued on Wednesday (October 21), Judge Raquel Fernandez Perrini rejected requests to suspend Enter's advertising and to bar it from signing new contracts.
The judge granted only one emergency request: Enter must preserve documents and records of its entire operation since January 1, 2024, including contracts with clients and law firms, model versions, internal manuals, and pay and pricing flows. According to the decision, the material presented by the bar showed a plausible controversy over the scope of Enter's services, and the risk that records could be altered or discarded justified immediate preservation. Other requests are still pending.
The OAB-SP filed suit earlier this month, arguing that Enter practises what it calls law without lawyers. It wants effective, verifiable and auditable human supervision by lawyers at every stage, more transparency, and a ban on offering the service to people who are not lawyers. Enter says its AI agents produce the first version of each step in a court case before a professional steps in, and its clients include Bradesco, Mercado Livre, Nubank and LATAM.
What it means in practice
For now Enter keeps operating as before, with an obligation to keep a detailed paper trail that could become evidence later. Enter said it had already offered to preserve the documents voluntarily, that all platform content goes through human audit, review and editing, and that the final decision always rests with a licensed lawyer. The OAB-SP said the case does not seek to shut Enter down or ban AI tools, only safeguards that protect lawyers' independence and identify who answers for each stage of a case.
The dispute is the latest test of how Brazilian institutions police legal AI. The Rio de Janeiro bar asked to join the São Paulo lawsuit earlier this month, the CNJ suspended a Goiás electoral court ruling over signs of unreviewed AI text, and a São Paulo court ordered Jusbrasil to remove an AI instruction disparaging a rival.
What to watch: how the court rules on the remaining requests, whether other bar sections join the case, and whether Brazil's pending AI bill ends up addressing professional responsibility for AI-drafted legal work.