Is there a nationwide bar rule requiring lawyers to disclose AI use to clients?

No single nationwide rule exists. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 29, 2024) states there is no across-the-board duty to disclose generative-AI use to every client on every matter, but that a lawyer must disclose if the client asks, and must obtain informed consent before entering client information into a self-learning generative-AI tool.

Do courts require disclosure of AI use in filings, separate from bar rules?

Many individual federal and state judges have issued their own standing orders requiring certification or disclosure of AI use in filings before that specific judge, distinct from any bar association rule. These vary court by court and change with little notice.

What does ABA Formal Opinion 512 actually require?

It requires lawyers using generative AI to consider their existing ethical duties under the Model Rules — competence, confidentiality, communication, candor to the tribunal, supervision of subordinates, and reasonable fees — as they apply to AI use, rather than creating a wholly new AI-specific rule.

Do bar rules require disclosing AI use to clients or courts?

https://citationsafe.com/faq/do-bar-rules-require-ai-disclosure

The honest answer is: it depends, and there is no single nationwide rule. The most authoritative national guidance is the American Bar Association’s Formal Opinion 512, “Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools,” issued July 29, 2024 by the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. It is guidance interpreting the existing Model Rules of Professional Conduct, not a new disclosure mandate, and individual state bars and individual judges have each layered their own, sometimes stricter, requirements on top.

What ABA Formal Opinion 512 says about client disclosure

Per the opinion, there is no across-the-board duty to disclose generative-AI use to a client on every matter. However, if the client asks whether AI was used, the lawyer must disclose. Separately, informed client consent is required before entering information related to the representation into a self-learning generative-AI tool — a confidentiality-driven requirement (Model Rule 1.6), distinct from a general disclosure obligation.

The broader ethical framework the opinion applies

Formal Opinion 512 doesn’t create AI-specific rules from scratch; it walks through how the existing Model Rules apply: competence (Rule 1.1) requires understanding a GenAI tool well enough to use it responsibly, not becoming a technologist; confidentiality (Rule 1.6) governs what client information can be entered into a tool; communication (Rule 1.4) covers when disclosure to the client is required; candor toward the tribunal (Rule 3.3) is the rule most directly implicated by a hallucinated citation; supervisory rules (5.1/5.3) extend responsibility to subordinate lawyers and non-lawyer staff using AI tools; and reasonable-fee rules (Rule 1.5) address billing for time spent using AI.

Court-level requirements are separate and vary widely

Independent of bar ethics rules, individual federal district judges and some state courts have issued their own standing orders requiring attorneys to certify whether AI was used in preparing a filing, and if so, that a human verified the output. These orders are judge-specific, not jurisdiction-wide, change with little notice, and are not the same thing as a bar disclosure rule. Citation Safe maintains a curated, sourced starting point on these at /standing-orders, with the honest caveat that it is a starting point, not an exhaustive database — always check the specific court’s own website before filing.

What this means practically

There are three separate questions that get conflated under “AI disclosure rules”: what your bar’s ethics rules require toward your client, what your specific court requires toward the tribunal, and what Rule 11 or its state equivalents require by way of verification regardless of disclosure — see does Rule 11 apply to AI-generated briefs. None of this is legal advice; if your matter is in a specific court or jurisdiction, confirm the current rule directly with that bar or court.

Source: ABA Formal Opinion 512, “Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools” (July 29, 2024), American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.

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Written by the Citation Safe Research Desk · Reviewed by Andy Gaber, Founder