Court AI Disclosure Orders: Who Actually Requires What (2026)

Two layers of court regulation, and only one of them is mapped

When lawyers ask “do courts require AI disclosure,” they are really asking about two different layers. The top layer is system-wide policy: rules adopted by a state court system or supreme court for every courtroom in the jurisdiction. That layer is small, new, and surprisingly permissive. The bottom layer is the judge-by-judge layer: standing orders, individual practice rules, and local rules adopted by single judges or single courts. That layer is large, fragmented, and where all the real disclosure obligations live.

The system-wide layer: permissive by design

New York adopted the first comprehensive statewide rule. 22 NYCRR Part 161, “Use of Artificial Intelligence Technology,” was adopted March 25, 2026 and took effect June 1, 2026, covering every Unified Court System court, civil and criminal. Its posture is accountability over disclosure: AI use in preparing court papers is permitted, and the rule expressly declines to impose a system-wide disclosure requirement. Instead, its Appendix A offers individual courts an optional model rule under which a signature certifies careful review and confirmation that the paper contains no fabricated cases, statutes, or other material, enforceable through 22 NYCRR 130-1.1 sanctions and Rule 3.3. Two scope notes matter in practice: papers offered as evidence are excluded, and because Appendix A is opt-in, New York practice still requires checking whether your particular court adopted it.

Illinois reached the same destination earlier with less machinery. The Illinois Supreme Court’s AI policy, announced December 18, 2024, authorizes AI use by attorneys, judges, litigants, and staff so long as it complies with legal and ethical standards, declines to require disclosure in pleadings, and makes the user fully accountable for the final product, including review of AI content before filing.

New Jersey belongs in this layer too, though its instrument is guidance rather than rule: the Supreme Court’s January 24, 2024 preliminary guidelines state there is no duty to disclose AI use to the court, while underlining that candor duties leave no room for unverified content.

The pattern across all three: courts are not banning the technology or demanding routine disclosure; they are re-pointing existing accountability rules at it. The signature on the filing is the regulatory instrument.

The judge-by-judge layer: where the obligations actually are

Individual federal and state judges began issuing AI standing orders in mid-2023, immediately after Mata v. Avianca made fabricated citations a national story, and the layer has grown continuously since. The orders vary widely: some require disclosing any generative AI use in drafting; some require certifying that every citation was human-verified; some apply only to self-represented litigants; a small number prohibit AI-drafted filings entirely.

This site deliberately does not re-catalog that layer, because a definitive free resource already exists: the Ropes & Gray AI Court Order Tracker, a public database of standing orders, local rules, and decisions across state courts, federal district courts, and federal appellate courts, relaunched in May 2026 with judge, court, date, and keyword search. As of June 2026 its categories count over six hundred entries touching generative AI usage, including well over a hundred that require disclosure or verification and a handful that prohibit use. Duke Law’s RAILS project also maintains an open dataset, though it has not been updated since May 2025.

What we add instead is the workflow.

The pre-filing check, in four steps

First, check the judge’s individual practices page and standing orders on the court’s own site; that is the authoritative source, and orders change. Second, check the court’s local rules for AI provisions adopted court-wide. Third, run the judge and court through the Ropes & Gray tracker as a cross-check, not a substitute. Fourth, regardless of what you find, run the verification workflow anyway: every citation independently confirmed in a traditional database before filing, because Rule 3.3 and Rule 11-type certifications apply in every courtroom whether or not an AI order exists. A filing that survives that workflow complies with the strictest standing order in the country; one that does not is sanctionable even where no AI order exists.

Firms can make this systematic rather than heroic by writing the forum check into their AI policy as a per-filing step; the policy template includes it, and the candor guide covers what happens to lawyers who skip it.