IL 22nd Circuit (McHenry County): 22nd Judicial Circuit (McHenry County) Administrative O…
Chief Judge Michael J. Chmiel · 22nd Judicial Circuit of Illinois (McHenry County)
Verified September 30, 2026
- Citation
- 22nd Judicial Circuit (McHenry County) Administrative Order 2024-23: Artificial Intelligence Policy and Plan
- Order date
- October 9, 2024
Status and scope
No AI-specific filing obligation: in force, but it imposes no disclosure, verification, or use restriction on attorney filings beyond existing rules. It provides: Participants and professionals in cases in this Circuit shall consider the admonitions in the order and engage AI carefully, especially with regard to the rules that govern AI use directly and indirectly.
What the instrument provides
- Participants and professionals in cases in this Circuit shall consider the admonitions in the order and engage AI carefully, especially with regard to the rules that govern AI use directly and indirectly.
- Recitals invoke Illinois Supreme Court Rule 137 (well-grounded pleadings), Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct of 2010 (candor), and the 2023 Code of Judicial Conduct.
- Paragraph 3: 'The Judges of this Circuit shall endeavor to: A. Learn about AI; B. Consider and learn about available legal research tools which utilize AI; C. Learn how AI can otherwise be used; and D. Implement Standing Orders which address the use of AI.'
- No mandatory disclosure or separate certification. Soft mandate ('shall consider') paired with general professional-responsibility framing.
Practice areas: state civil, state criminal, state family, state probate
What the order requires
Chief Judge Michael J. Chmiel of Illinois’s 22nd Judicial Circuit (McHenry County) issued Administrative Order 2024-23 on October 9, 2024. The operative language is a soft mandate (“shall consider the admonitions”), not a procedural disclosure or certification. The recitals tie it to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 137 (sanctions for non-well-grounded pleadings), the Illinois RPCs, and the 2023 Code of Judicial Conduct.
The order predated the Illinois Supreme Court Policy on AI by under three months; that statewide policy took effect January 1, 2025. The IL Supreme Court Policy has since absorbed most lower-court initiative on AI in Illinois. No other circuit-wide AI administrative order in Illinois was located on the 2026-09-30 verification pass. In Cook County, AI provisions have instead appeared in individual judges’ standing orders (see Judge Ehrlich’s Chancery Calendar 9 order).
For McHenry County practice, the AO functions as a circuit-level reinforcement of the statewide framework rather than a separate filing requirement. Firms with cases in the circuit should still rely on the Illinois Supreme Court Policy as the operative rule.