Court AI Orders and Guidance: A Dated Official Locator

Which courts publish AI-related standing orders or practice directions?

Selected official materials include the Southern District of Texas's General Order 2025-04, the Illinois Supreme Court's AI policy effective January 1, 2025, and October 2025 guidance for covered judicial office holders in England and Wales and the tribunal system. These are different document types with different audiences; check the actual court, assigned judge and proceeding before relying on any of them.

Three official starting points

Southern District of Texas: General Order 2025-04, signed May 7, 2025, cautions filers to verify AI-assisted submissions and retains the signer's Rule 11 responsibility. [S1]

Illinois Supreme Court: its policy effective January 1, 2025 permits AI use subject to legal and ethical standards and says AI-use disclosure should not be required in a pleading. [S2]

Courts and Tribunals Judiciary: the October 31, 2025 guidance applies to covered judicial office holders and support staff; it is not a universal litigant filing rule. [S3]

• Read the issuing body's full text through the source links below.
• Record the named audience and activity before extracting a requirement.
• Check for later local, judge-specific or case-specific instructions.

Document type changes the research question

A general order, an individual judge's practice instruction and staff guidance may address related technology without having the same scope. A news announcement can help locate a document but should not replace its operative text.

For each source, ask whether it instructs a filer, governs court personnel or states a broader policy. Keep these categories visible in the research result. Otherwise a researcher may mistakenly apply an internal staff precaution as a litigant disclosure obligation.

• Court-wide order: identify court, scope and effective date.
• Judge-specific instruction: verify assignment and the current judge page.
• Case order: verify docket, parties and the particular proceeding.
• Internal guidance: identify covered staff and authorized-use context.
• Proposal: do not label it an adopted rule.

Synthetic locator card for a filing team

A fictional team is preparing a civil filing and finds a three-year-old article describing an AI certificate. The article is a lead, not sufficient evidence that the certificate remains required. The proposed locator card requires a current official source before the team adopts the form.

• Court and assigned judge: exact identifiers.
• Document title: copied from the official source.
• Version and effective date: separately recorded.
• Applicability: filing type, parties and represented status.
• Instruction: narrow summary with a source location.
• Status: official text opened, inaccessible or supersession unresolved.
• Next check: docket orders and the current local-rule or judge-instruction page.

Handle unavailable or conflicting sources honestly

If a search result and a live page disagree, preserve the discrepancy and investigate the official record. Do not silently choose the older text because it is easier to retrieve. If the controlling source remains inaccessible, label the requirement unresolved.

A locator is useful when it leads the reader to the correct authority and exposes uncertainty. It is not improved by filling every jurisdiction with a secondary summary or by implying that a checked date guarantees future validity.

• Keep publication date distinct from last checked date.
• Flag a broken link without inventing replacement wording.
• Confirm whether a newer document supersedes an earlier one.
• Before filing, reconcile any conflict through the applicable court sources and appropriate professional review.

Scope and limitations

Selected official-source locator checked November 5, 2026. It is not a complete inventory or a certification of current instructions in a particular case.

This page does not determine the rules governing a particular filing. The listed documents may be supplemented or superseded, and the locator is intentionally selective.

Sources

1. Southern District of Texas General Order 2025-04: Generative AI in Court Filings — May 7, 2025 order cautions about accuracy and retains signer's Rule 11 responsibility. Checked 2026-11-05
2. Illinois Supreme Court Policy on Artificial Intelligence, effective January 1, 2025 — AI use subject to legal and ethical standards, output review and retained human responsibility; pleading disclosure policy. Checked 2026-11-05
3. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary: AI Guidance for Judicial Office Holders, October 31, 2025 — Guidance for covered judicial office holders and support staff; accuracy, confidentiality, bias and personal responsibility. Checked 2026-11-05

Explore further

For the broader context of agent-assisted legal workflows, visit Agentic Attorney at https://agenticattorney.com/. This locator focuses on reading official instructions accurately and has no court affiliation. Explore Agentic Attorney.