E.D. Pa.: Section I.G.3 (Standing Order on Artificial Intelligence) of Judge Kelley B. Ho…
Judge Kelley Brisbon Hodge · U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Verified September 30, 2026
- Citation
- Section I.G.3 (Standing Order on Artificial Intelligence) of Judge Kelley B. Hodge's Judicial Policies and Procedures, E.D. Pa.
- Order date
- May 10, 2024
Summary
Anyone (counsel or pro se litigant) using generative AI in connection with the filing of a pleading, motion, or paper or in serving discovery must comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b).
What does the order require?
- Anyone (counsel or pro se litigant) using generative AI in connection with the filing of a pleading, motion, or paper or in serving discovery must comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b).
- Anyone using generative AI must comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(g).
- Anyone using generative AI must comply with any other relevant rule, including all applicable ethical rules.
Practice areas: federal civil
What the order requires
Judge Hodge’s order takes a light-touch approach distinct from the M.D. Pa. Certificate-of-Use template. It does not impose a separate disclosure declaration or certification requirement. Instead, it requires counsel and pro se litigants who use generative AI to comply with existing Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 11(b) and 26(g), plus all other relevant rules, including ethical rules. Any verification obligation comes from Rule 11’s reasonable-inquiry duty rather than from a chambers-specific certification. The provision appears in the list of standing orders with which Judge Hodge “requires compliance,” and it carried over unchanged into the procedures revised June 18, 2026.
For E.D. Pa. practitioners, the order is useful authority for the proposition that fabricated AI citations violate Rule 11 even absent an AI-specific disclosure rule, because the verification obligation is the operative duty regardless of whether the underlying tool is human or machine.
R&G data correction
R&G’s AI Court Order Tracker mis-attributes this entry: the source URL field points to cacd.uscourts.gov (Central District of California) which is unrelated, and the panel attribution suggested a different judge in some readings. The actual order is Section I.G.3 of Judge Hodge’s E.D. Pa. judicial policies and procedures, available at hodpol.pdf on paed.uscourts.gov. R&G’s date (2024-05-13) also drifts from the revision marker on the earliest archived copy (“Rev. 5/10/2024”); the 2024-05-10 date used here treats that marker as authoritative.
Quotable line
“Anyone—counsel or pro se litigant—using Generative Artificial Intelligence (‘GAI’) in connection with the filing of a pleading, motion, or paper in this Court or the serving/delivering of a request, response, or objection to discovery must comply with Rule 11(b) and Rule 26(g) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and any other relevant rule, including all applicable ethical rules.”
Primary source
Judge Hodge’s Judicial Policies and Procedures PDF, paed.uscourts.gov