AI in Legal Research and Court Filings

Short Answer

Texas lawyers may use generative AI subject to the duties governing their work. Ethics Opinion 705 addresses competence, confidentiality, verification and fees; the underlying disciplinary rules supply the enforceable duties. Northern District Local Civil Rule 7.2(f) requires a first-page disclosure for a brief prepared with generative AI. Judge-specific orders can impose additional conditions. Read the actual authorities, check facts and quotations, and consult the current court and judge requirements for the filing.

Which Laws Apply

Texas AI-specific: proposed statewide amendments to Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 13 and Appellate Rules 9 and 52, Misc. Docket 26-9054, June 26, 2026. The proposal is separate from current rules and is not presented here as final.

Generally applicable Texas law: Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.01, 1.04, 1.05, 3.03, 5.01, 5.03; Tex. R. Civ. P. 13; Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 10.

Federal: Fed. R. Civ. P. 11; N.D. Tex. Local Civil Rule 7.2(f); judge-specific orders.

Ethics Opinion 705

The Professional Ethics Committee issued Opinion 705 in February 2025 at the request of the State Bar’s Taskforce on Responsible AI in the Law. It describes the tendency of generative AI to “hallucinate” and cites Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023), in which lawyers were sanctioned for filing ChatGPT-invented cases. The opinion addresses these duties: lawyers must understand how the tools work well enough to use them competently; must not reveal confidential client information to tools that may share it; must verify AI output before using it in client work or filings; and, when billing hourly, may not charge for time not actually spent, though reasonable AI costs may be passed through with the client’s agreement. Supervision duties for lawyers and nonlawyer assistants apply to the use of AI by others in the firm.

Court Rules in Texas

Rules change. Check the court’s local rules and the assigned judge’s procedures for every filing.

Sanctions

The Eastern District’s official rules and Judge Love’s April 9, 2025 order expressly address reliability, verification and disclosure of AI use. Rule 11 in federal court, Texas Rule 13 and Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 10 require the applicable inquiry and certifications. A generated citation must be opened and checked against the actual authority. A real case name does not verify a quotation, holding, procedural status or pinpoint.

A Verification Routine

Pull every cited authority from an official or reliable database and read the cited passage.

Check every quotation word for word.

Confirm subsequent history.

Keep a record of verification for filings in courts with certification requirements.

Do not enter confidential client information into tools without appropriate confidentiality terms.

Northern District of Texas Example

The Northern District of Texas shows how two layers stack. The district’s Local Civil Rule 7.2(f) requires a brief prepared using generative artificial intelligence to disclose that fact on its first page under the heading “Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence”; a brief filed without the disclosure certifies that no part of it was AI-prepared. Individual judges add their own conditions on top of the local rule: Judge Boyle’s judge-specific requirements, effective September 1, 2026, bar AI-generated text in filings before her, allow AI only to identify errors (with disclosure under Rule 7.2(f) and human verification of any resulting edit), and require a signed certificate that the filing was drafted entirely by a human attorney. Both the local rule and the assigned judge’s requirements must be checked for every filing.

What Is Unsettled

Court and judge requirements can change. The June 26, 2026 Texas proposal is not treated as effective without a final adoption order; the current consolidated Rule 13 still contains the existing text. Scope questions about research, drafting, editing and embedded AI features should be answered from the particular order’s terms rather than a generic statement that AI is allowed or forbidden.