W.D.N.C.: W.D.N.C. Standing Order, In Re: Use of Artificial Intelligence

What the order requires

The Western District of North Carolina’s Standing Order, In Re: Use of Artificial Intelligence (Docket No. 3:24-mc-104), was so ordered on June 18, 2024 and signed by all seven W.D.N.C. district and senior district judges: Chief Judge Martin Reidinger, Judges Frank D. Whitney, Max O. Cogburn Jr., and Kenneth D. Bell, and Senior Judges Robert J. Conrad Jr., Graham C. Mullen, and Richard L. Voorhees. The order applies to every brief or memorandum filed in the district. The filer must include a certification with two parts:

1. No artificial intelligence was employed in doing the research for the preparation of this document, with the exception of such artificial intelligence embedded in the standard on-line legal research sources Westlaw, Lexis, FastCase, and Bloomberg;
2. Every statement and every citation to an authority contained in this document has been checked by an attorney in this case and/or a paralegal working at his/her direction (or the party making the filing if acting pro se) as to the accuracy of the proposition for which it is offered, and the citation to authority provided.

The certification requirement applies to “all attorneys and pro se filers.” The preamble explains the court’s concern: “Briefs and memoranda prepared using artificial intelligence (AI) platforms (e.g. ChatGPT) have increased the Court’s concern regarding the reliability and accuracy of filings. … There have been several reports around the country regarding courts receiving briefs containing fictitious case cites and unsupported arguments that have been generated by AI sources. This order is intended to mitigate these concerns with the following requirements.”

The carve-out and what it does not address

The order names four legal-research platforms whose embedded AI is exempt: Westlaw, Lexis, FastCase, and Bloomberg. The published text does not address generative drafting features that have since been added to those platforms, including Westlaw’s GenAI products and equivalents on Lexis. Practitioners using these features in W.D.N.C. matters should treat the carve-out as ambiguous as applied to generative drafting and disclose conservatively until the court speaks to it.

Scope

The order is filed in the Charlotte Division (Docket No. 3:24-mc-104) but is signed en banc by all active and senior district judges of the Western District. That signing pattern, together with publication in the W.D.N.C. general orders index alongside other district-wide orders at https://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov/court-info/local-rules-and-orders/general-orders, supports application across the Charlotte, Asheville, and Statesville divisions of the W.D.N.C.

Practitioner workflow

Firms with W.D.N.C. matters should add the certification block to their federal brief templates and document the verification step for each filing. Durham-based firms with cases that cross into W.D.N.C. (most often Charlotte) should maintain the workflow even if their primary federal docket is M.D.N.C., which has no equivalent district-wide order. For the broader North Carolina picture, see the North Carolina state tracker.

Primary source

W.D.N.C. court announcement: https://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov/news/standing-order-re-use-artificial-intelligence

Order PDF: https://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Standing%20Order%20In%20Re-%20Use%20of%20Artificial%20Intelligence2.pdf

Wayback backup: https://web.archive.org/web/2025/https://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Standing%20Order%20In%20Re-%20Use%20of%20Artificial%20Intelligence2.pdf