reportAI in Courts
US federal court AI standing orders: who requires what
No national US rule governs AI in filings. A primary-sourced registry of representative federal judges' standing orders: certify, disclose, or prohibit.
Daman Kaur · updated
The United States has no national court rule on generative AI in filings. The one circuit-level attempt — the Fifth Circuit’s proposed certification rule — was withdrawn on 12 June 2024. Governance is therefore judge-by-judge, and it is inconsistent: some judges demand a signed certificate, some require disclosure, some prohibit AI outright, and some simply restate the existing duty to verify. This is a representative, primary-sourced registry of that patchwork, current as of 15 July 2026.
How many orders exist
Nobody knows exactly, and that is part of the problem. Public trackers put the number well into the hundreds: the Ropes & Gray AI Court Order Tracker logs 756 entries that apply to AI used in filings and 161 that require disclosure or verification; Law360 Pulse reports 113 active orders binding attorney filings. The entries below are a verified sample across the range of approaches, not a complete list.
The registry
| Judge / court | District | Date | Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brantley Starr | N.D. Tex. | 30 May 2023 | Mandatory certification — certify no generative AI, or that AI output was human-checked (first US order) |
| Michael Baylson | E.D. Pa. | 6 Jun 2023 | Mandatory disclosure + certify every citation verified |
| Stephen Vaden | Court of International Trade | 8 Jun 2023 | Disclose the AI program and AI-generated sections; confidentiality certification |
| Gabriel Fuentes | N.D. Ill. | 2023, rev. Dec 2024 | Conditional disclosure of tool and manner; relies on Rule 11 |
| Christopher Boyko | N.D. Ohio | — | Prohibition — bars AI in preparing filings |
| Rita Lin | N.D. Cal. | eff. 16 Mar 2026 | Verification-only — AI permitted; counsel must personally verify |
| E.D. Tex. (Mag. J. John D. Love) | E.D. Tex. | 9 Apr 2025 | Mandatory certification — a “Certificate of Generative AI Usage” required of counsel and pro se litigants alike |
| Fifth Circuit | 5th Cir. | proposed Nov 2023 | Proposed certification rule — not adopted (withdrawn 12 Jun 2024) |
Flagged for confirmation before relying: an E.D. Mo. district-wide prohibition for pro se litigants (corroborated across trackers, exact local-rule cite pending); a reported AI-veracity provision in Judge Subramanian’s S.D.N.Y. Individual Practices (not confirmed on the court’s primary page — open the current PDF before citing).
What the pattern shows
Four approaches coexist in one federal system: mandatory certification (Starr), mandatory disclosure (Baylson, Vaden), prohibition (Boyko), and verification-only (Lin, Fuentes). A lawyer practising across districts cannot assume any single compliance step satisfies every judge. The one requirement common to all of them — and to the courts in every other country on the worldwide comparison — is that the filer verify every authority. The certificate is optional; the duty is not.
Sources
- Judge Starr — Mandatory Certification Regarding Generative AI (txnd.uscourts.gov)
- Judge Baylson — Standing Order Re: AI (paed.uscourts.gov)
- Judge Vaden — Order on Artificial Intelligence (cit.uscourts.gov)
- Judge Boyko — Standing Order on Generative AI (ohnd.uscourts.gov)
- Ropes & Gray AI Court Order Tracker; Law360 Pulse tracker (order counts)