D. Conn.: D. Conn. Notice to Counsel and Litigants Regarding AI

What the notice says

On September 12, 2025, the Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, Dinah Milton Kinney, issued a Notice to Counsel and Litigants Regarding AI. The operative text reads:

All parties are on notice that the Court has a no-tolerance policy for any briefing (AI-assisted or not) that hallucinates legal propositions or otherwise severely misstates the law. Such filings will often result in sanctions absent reasonable excuse.

The notice is short, district-wide, and issued by the Clerk rather than the judges in a standing order. It does not impose a new disclosure or certification regime. Its function is to signal how Rule 11 will be enforced in the District of Connecticut: hallucinated legal authority will face sanctions, and the framing “AI-assisted or not” makes clear that the source of the error does not provide a defense.

How this differs from disclosure-style orders

Most of the federal AI orders surveyed for this tracker either require disclosure (E.D. Pa. Baylson chambers; N.D. Tex. Local Rule 7.2(f)), prohibit AI use (N.D. Ohio Boyko, S.D. Ohio Newman), or require certification (D. Haw. Kobayashi). The Connecticut notice does none of these. Its mechanism is enforcement signaling: it tells the bar what to expect when a Rule 11 motion lands in a Connecticut courtroom.

For our purposes, the practical effect is similar to E.D. Tex. GO 25-07 (Rule 11 anchor without procedural disclosure) and S.D. Tex. General Order 2025-04 (district-wide Rule 11 caution). The district treats hallucinated citations as Rule 11 violations, not as a separate procedural failure.

Practitioner workflow

D. Conn. matters: no disclosure block required; no certification required. The notice does not change the operative rule (Rule 11 still applies) but it does change the enforcement posture. Firms should treat any unverified AI-generated citation in a Connecticut filing as exposing the lawyer to immediate sanctions risk, with little prospect of leniency for “I didn’t realize the AI made it up.” The notice’s “AI-assisted or not” framing forecloses that excuse.

Scope and form

District-wide notice from the Clerk of Court. Not a standing order; not a local rule amendment. Some commentators frame it as a “rule”; the more accurate description is an enforcement notice.

Primary source

Notice (PDF): https://www.ctd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Notice-to-Counsel-and-Litigants-Regarding-AI.pdf