S.D. Ohio: Standing Civil/Criminal Orders Re Use of AI (Cases Assigned to Judge Newman)

What the order requires

Judge Michael J. Newman of the Southern District of Ohio embeds the AI ban in his standing civil and criminal orders (Section VI of the civil order; Sections VII and XIX of the criminal order). The ban first took effect July 14, 2023, in the same words as Judge Boyko’s order; the current provision took effect August 27, 2025. The operative text (civil Section VI and criminal Section XIX) reads:

No attorney for a party, or a pro se party, may use Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in the preparation of any filing submitted to the Court. Parties and their counsel who violate this AI ban may face sanctions including, inter alia, striking the pleading from the record, the imposition of economic sanctions or contempt, and dismissal of the lawsuit. The Court does not intend this AI ban to apply to information gathered from legal search engines, such as Westlaw or LexisNexis, Internet search engines, such as Google or Bing, or Microsoft Suite products or the equivalent, such as Word. All parties and their counsel have a duty to immediately inform the Court if they discover the use of AI in any document filed in their case or an opponent’s case. The purpose of this provision is not to prevent parties from using AI tools, such as legal search engines or Microsoft Suite products but, rather, to prevent counsel and pro se parties from citing false, misleading and/or hallucinated cases and law.

Refinements over the Boyko model

Newman’s order tracks the Northern District of Ohio Boyko order closely but adds three refinements: (1) it carves out “Microsoft Suite products or the equivalent, such as Word”; (2) it extends the reporting duty to AI discovered in “an opponent’s case”; and (3) it states the purpose of the rule, anchoring enforcement to hallucination risk rather than AI use as such. Section VII of the criminal order still carries the earlier carve-out and reporting language, followed by the new purpose sentence. Both refinements reduce the practical surprise of the ban while keeping its core prohibition intact.

Scope

The order applies to all filings in civil and criminal matters assigned to Judge Newman. The S.D. Ohio Local Rules contain no AI provision, and other S.D. Ohio judges, including Judges Graham and Hopkins, have issued their own generative-AI disclosure orders, so check chambers rules judge-by-judge.

Primary source

Civil order: https://www.ohsd.uscourts.gov/sites/ohsd/files//MJN%20Standing%20Civil%20Order%208.27.25.pdf

Criminal order: https://www.ohsd.uscourts.gov/sites/ohsd/files//MJN%20Standing%20Criminal%20Order%208.27.2025.pdf

Chambers landing: https://www.ohsd.uscourts.gov/FPNewman