Cabarrus County, NC: 22nd Superior Court District (Cabarrus County) Revised Administrativ…
Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Martin (Marty) McGee · North Carolina Superior Court, District 22 (Cabarrus County)
Verified April 25, 2026
- Citation
- 22nd Superior Court District (Cabarrus County) Revised Administrative Order 25-09
- Order date
- December 8, 2025
Summary
No disclosure required for AI use in drafting pleadings and advocacy-related documents that are not used as evidence.
What does the order require?
- No disclosure required for AI use in drafting pleadings and advocacy-related documents that are not used as evidence.
- Mandatory disclosure required when AI is used to generate or alter evidence.
- Disclosure of AI-related evidence must occur no later than 90 days before trial.
- Attorneys must notify the presiding judge before using AI for note-taking or recording during proceedings.
- Attorneys, judges, and self-represented litigants remain accountable for the final work product.
- All users must thoroughly review AI-generated content before submitting.
Practice areas: state civil, state criminal, evidence
What the order does
Cabarrus County Revised Administrative Order 25-09, effective December 8, 2025, supersedes the original July 23, 2024 order. It was issued by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Martin (Marty) McGee, a Fellow of Duke Law’s Responsible AI in Legal Services (RAILS) initiative. The order applies to matters in the 22nd Superior Court District covering Cabarrus County only.
The order’s central distinction is what it does not require: AI-drafted pleadings and advocacy documents that are not used as evidence do not trigger disclosure. The disclosure obligation attaches when AI is used to generate or alter evidence, not when it is used to draft argument.
The 90-day pre-trial disclosure rule
When a party intends to introduce AI-generated or AI-altered evidence, the order requires disclosure to opposing parties no later than 90 days before trial. This is the operational deadline practitioners must docket the moment AI evidence is contemplated. The 90-day window is intended to give opposing counsel time to evaluate authenticity and noticed challenges before the eve of trial.
Note-taking and recording
A separate procedural rule requires attorneys to notify the presiding judge before using AI for note-taking or recording during proceedings. This is independent of the evidentiary disclosure rule and applies to in-court use of AI assistive tools.
How this differs from the W.D.N.C. federal order
The W.D.N.C. Standing Order requires an AI-use certification on every brief filed in federal court. Cabarrus AO 25-09 takes the opposite approach for advocacy work: drafting with AI, with proper review, requires no disclosure at all. AI evidence is the only category that triggers disclosure, and the timing is deadline-driven rather than filing-driven.
Practitioners who handle matters in both forums must maintain two separate workflows. A brief filed in W.D.N.C. needs the federal certification regardless of AI use; a state filing in Cabarrus County does not, but evidence handling in a state matter does require attention to the 90-day deadline. See the W.D.N.C. standing order and the North Carolina state tracker for the full picture.
RAILS authorship
Judge McGee is a RAILS Fellow at Duke Law’s Center on Law & Technology. The order is one of the more carefully reasoned state-court AI orders to date and is referenced in RAILS’ public AI orders tracker. Practitioners can find Duke DCLT and RAILS materials at https://law.duke.edu/dclt/ and https://rails.legal/.
Primary sources
Filed Revised Administrative Order 25-09 (PDF): https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/local-rules-forms/Filed%20AI%20Revised%20Admin%20Order%202025.pdf
Quick Reference Guide (PDF): https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/local-rules-forms/AI%20Quick%20Reference%20Guide.pdf
Wayback backup (order PDF): https://web.archive.org/web/2025/https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/local-rules-forms/Filed%20AI%20Revised%20Admin%20Order%202025.pdf