North Carolina: AI Ethics Guidance for Law Firms

Bottom line for a 5-50 attorney North Carolina firm: 2024 FEO 1 is the governing ethics guidance, and it is detailed. It addresses competence, confidentiality vetting of AI vendors, billing, supervision, and when client consent is required (substantive AI delegation requires consent; ordinary tasks such as legal research do not). In the Western District, a July 2026 order replaced the 2024 AI certificate: every filing is now deemed a certification that its factual and legal contentions are supported, its cited authorities exist and are accurately represented, and its quotations are accurate. Cabarrus County Superior Court requires disclosure when AI is used to generate, alter, or analyze evidence, generally no later than 90 days before trial.

Start with: a written AI use policy keyed to 2024 FEO 1, a vendor due-diligence file built on its vetting considerations, and a citation and quotation verification procedure that satisfies the W.D.N.C. deemed certification.

Working in North Carolina? Jump to:

• Durham and the Middle District
• Charlotte and W.D.N.C.
• Raleigh and the Triangle

2024 FEO 1: the formal opinion

Citation: North Carolina State Bar, 2024 Formal Ethics Opinion 1, Use of Artificial Intelligence in a Law Practice (adopted November 1, 2024). Primary source.

Status: Formal ethics opinion. The State Bar Council issues ethics opinions “to provide ethical guidance to North Carolina lawyers and to establish principles of ethical conduct” (ethics opinions index). The State Bar has issued no later AI opinion; its opinions adopted since (through 2026 FEO 3) and its current proposed opinions do not address AI.

Key points

• A lawyer may use AI “provided the lawyer uses any AI program, tool, or resource competently, securely to protect client confidentiality, and with proper supervision.”
• The lawyer “is fully responsible for the use and impact of AI” and “may not abrogate her responsibilities under the Rules of Professional Conduct by relying upon AI.”
• “Generally, and as of the date of this opinion, lawyers should avoid inputting client-specific information into publicly available AI resources,” because some current programs retain and train on user information.
• For third-party AI programs, the opinion adopts 2011 FEO 6’s sample of considerations for vetting technology vendors (the vendor’s experience and reputation, security measures and confidentiality agreements, data retention and retrieval) as “a starting point,” and adds whether the provider “retains information submitted by the lawyer before and after the discontinuation of services or asserts proprietary rights to the information.”
• Hosting a tool on firm servers does not change the lawyer’s responsibility, and a lawyer using a customized program “must educate herself” on whether it sends information back to a central program.
• Signing a pleading does not shift responsibility: N.C. R. Civ. P. 11’s reasonable-inquiry duty applies to AI-assisted work.

Client consent

• A lawyer generally “need not inform her client that she is using an AI tool to complete ordinary tasks, such as conducting legal research or generic case/practice management.”
• If a lawyer delegates substantive tasks to AI, the client’s advanced informed consent is required (citing 2007 FEO 12).
• If the decision to use or not use an AI tool requires the client’s input with regard to fees, the lawyer must inform and seek input from the client.

Billing

• A lawyer billing hourly “may not bill a client for three hours of work when only one hour of work was actually experienced,” and may not bill based on the “time-value represented” by the end product.
• A flat fee is permitted “provided the flat fee charged is not clearly excessive and the client consents.”
• AI expenses may be charged if “accurate, not clearly excessive, and the client consents to the charge, preferably in writing,” either as costs specifically identified and directly related to the representation or through a general administrative fee covering general technology-related expenses, including AI.

Rules cited

Rule 1.1 (including Comment 8); Rule 1.4(b); Rule 1.5(a) and (b); Rule 1.6(c); Rule 3.1; Rule 5.3(a) and (b); Rule 7.1; Rule 8.4(c); N.C. R. Civ. Pro. 11.

Notable gaps

• The opinion “does not opine on whether the information shared with an AI tool violates the attorney-client privilege.”
• It does not identify which vendors satisfy the security standard or whether enterprise tiers of public tools satisfy it.
• It gives no guidance on AI in marketing or intake.

Foundational precedent opinions

2024 FEO 1 cites several earlier formal ethics opinions, including 2008 FEO 5 and 2005 FEO 10; three are central to its analysis. Firms reading 2024 FEO 1 in isolation will miss material that the opinion treats as already established.

2007 FEO 12: Outsourcing Legal Support Services

Adopted April 25, 2008. Primary source.

When a lawyer outsources substantive legal support services, the opinion calls for the client’s written informed consent, due diligence in selecting the provider, sufficient knowledge to supervise, ongoing review, and independent professional judgment. 2024 FEO 1 applies the same consent principle to substantive delegation to AI.

2011 FEO 6: SaaS and Cloud Vendor Security

Adopted January 27, 2012. Primary source.

2024 FEO 1’s vendor vetting considerations come from this opinion. A firm already maintaining cloud vendor documentation under 2011 FEO 6 has an established process that can be extended to AI vendors.

2022 FEO 4: Billing Considerations for Overlapping Legal Services

Adopted October 27, 2023. Primary source.

2024 FEO 1 draws on this opinion for billing. It addresses passing “any benefits created by Lawyer’s efficient provision of legal services on to the clients” and bars billing for time not actually spent. Flat fees and alternative structures are permitted with client consent provided the fee is not clearly excessive.

Court orders

Two North Carolina court orders sit on top of the bar opinion, one federal and one state, and they reach different conduct.

W.D.N.C. order on AI (July 29, 2026)

Full page: W.D.N.C. 2026 AI order. In Re: Use of Artificial Intelligence, No. 3:24-mc-104, Doc. 2, entered July 29, 2026 by the district’s judges (order). The order provides that attorneys and pro se parties “may employ AI or other technological assistance for conducting legal research or drafting pleadings and briefs,” but that anyone filing a document “is deemed to have certified to the Court” that:

• all factual contentions have evidentiary support;
• all legal contentions are warranted by existing law or a nonfrivolous argument to change it;
• all authorities cited actually exist, are accurately cited, and are accurately represented; and
• all quotations from evidence or authorities are verbatim accurate, except as specifically disclosed.

Separately, where AI “was involved in some respect in the process of generating or editing” an item of evidence (transcripts, summaries, analyses, expert reports, exhibits, photographs, or recordings), the attorney or pro se party offering it “is responsible for validating the accuracy and authenticity of such items,” and this “also extends to discovery responses, even if they are not submitted to the Court.” Sanctions may include referral to disciplinary authorities and barring an attorney from practice in the district for a period. The order “supersedes the Court’s June 18, 2024, Standing Order on the Use of Artificial Intelligence … and therefore, the filing of a separate certificate regarding the use of AI is no longer required.” The 2024 standing order had required a certificate on every brief that no AI was used in research beyond that embedded in standard legal research platforms.

Within the district, U.S. District Judge Matthew E. Orso’s Pretrial Order and Case Management Plan (revised June 2026) adds that the filer “must check every statement and citation in a document filed with the Court for accuracy” and that the court may summarily strike or deny any filing that contains hallucinated citations or assertions (order; tracker entry).

Cabarrus County AO 25-09

Full page: Cabarrus County AO 25-09. The revised administrative order of the Superior Court of Judicial District 25 (Cabarrus County), filed December 8, 2025, “replaces and supersedes the Court’s order entered on July 23, 2024” and applies to all civil and criminal proceedings in that court (order). It was issued under Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Martin B. McGee, a Duke RAILS Fellow. Key provisions:

• AI use need not be disclosed when used solely to assist in drafting legal argument, including briefs, motions, or pleadings.
• Disclosure is required if a party “generates, offers, materially alters, enhances, or analyzes evidence using AI,” for AI-generated factual summaries served or relied on as factual assertions in discovery, and for expert use of AI. Absent a contrary scheduling order, disclosure must be served no later than 90 days before trial, and immediately if AI-related evidence is discovered inside that window.
• No one other than the official court reporter or clerk may use AI tools to capture, record, transcribe, or alter audio or video during proceedings without express authorization from the presiding judge.
• Public AI tools may not be used with confidential, privileged, sealed, or otherwise protected information absent reliable assurances that inputs will not be stored, reviewed by humans, or used for training. Jurors are prohibited from using AI.

The county’s Local Rules of Practice for Superior Civil Cases (effective January 1, 2026) require compliance with the court’s current AI administrative order (local rules).

Key distinction

The W.D.N.C. order reaches the accuracy of every filed document, and of AI-involved evidence and discovery responses, without any AI-specific paperwork. The Cabarrus order reaches AI-generated or AI-altered evidence, courtroom recording, and confidentiality, with a pre-trial disclosure deadline. A firm with matters in both forums may wish to keep a citation-and-quotation verification procedure for W.D.N.C. filings and an evidence-AI docket flag for Cabarrus matters.

Appellate case

Creech v. City of Raleigh (NC Court of Appeals)

Case page: Creech v. City of Raleigh.

• Citation: Creech v. City of Raleigh, No. COA25-513 (N.C. Ct. App. May 20, 2026) (unpublished) (opinion; docket).
• AI-related ruling: after plaintiff’s counsel moved for leave to amend the appellant’s brief, the court’s November 3, 2025 order allowed the amendment and provided that “Plaintiff-Appellant’s 30 July 2025 brief shall be stricken” on the filing of the amended brief, with the “[c]ost of printing the amended brief … taxed to counsel personally.”
• Decision: the court affirmed in part and reversed in part on May 20, 2026. The opinion does not address AI or the withdrawn citations, so it sets no appellate standard on AI-hallucinated filings.

Durham and the Middle District

Durham County sits in the Sixteenth Judicial District Bar (NC State Bar judicial district, post-consolidation; older local rules still reference the “Fourteenth Judicial District” caption as a naming legacy). Federally, Durham is in the Middle District of North Carolina. There is no Durham-specific or M.D.N.C.-specific AI order; 2024 FEO 1 is the operative bar-conduct standard.

Federal practice in M.D.N.C.

No M.D.N.C. district-wide AI standing order and no individual-judge AI chambers rule has been identified across the current bench. M.D.N.C. filings are not subject to the W.D.N.C. order, but Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 verification duties and 2024 FEO 1 still govern. Durham firms with matters that cross into W.D.N.C. (Charlotte, Asheville, Statesville divisions) may wish to apply the W.D.N.C. verification procedure to those matters.

• M.D.N.C. judge roster: https://www.ncmd.uscourts.gov/judges-middle-district-north-carolina
• M.D.N.C. judicial preferences: https://www.ncmd.uscourts.gov/judicial-preferences-summary

Durham County state courts

No AI-specific local rule or administrative order has been adopted for Durham County Superior Court, District Court, Family Court, or Juvenile Court as of this entry’s date. The Cabarrus County AI evidence disclosure obligation has no reciprocal effect in Durham; there is no Durham-specific AI evidence disclosure rule.

• Durham County local rules: https://www.nccourts.gov/locations/durham-county/durham-county-local-rules-and-forms

Sixteenth Judicial District Bar / Durham County Bar Association

The Sixteenth Judicial District Bar is the mandatory bar for attorneys practicing in Durham County. The Durham County Bar Association (DCBA) is the voluntary companion organization. Both operate from https://durhambar.net. The organization runs a CLE program (live and on-demand) and houses specialty groups: the Young Lawyers Division, the George H. White Bar, the Durham Defense Bar, and Durham Orange Women Attorneys (DOWA), plus a BarCARES confidential intervention program. As of this entry’s date, no AI-specific CLE programming was identified on the public DCBA site. Durham firms seeking AI ethics CLE credit may look to NCBA statewide offerings or Lawyers Mutual NC resources.

Research and regional resources

• Duke Center on Law & Technology (DCLT) and its Responsible AI in Legal Services (RAILS) initiative publish research on responsible AI in legal practice. RAILS maintains a public resource page on court orders on AI, and Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Martin B. McGee, under whom the Cabarrus County order issued, is a RAILS Fellow. https://law.duke.edu/dclt/ ; https://rails.legal/.
• Lawyers Mutual Insurance NC is headquartered in Cary (1001 Winstead Drive, Suite 285), a short drive from Durham. LMNC’s AI guidance applies uniformly across its NC-insured population. https://lawyersmutualnc.com.

Charlotte and W.D.N.C.

Charlotte practitioners file under the W.D.N.C. 2026 AI order: no separate AI certificate, but every filed document carries the deemed certification described above, and the order’s validation duty also reaches AI-involved discovery responses that are not filed. Judge Orso’s case management order adds a check-every-citation requirement in his cases. 2024 FEO 1 supplies the bar-conduct standard.

Raleigh and the Triangle

Wake County and the broader Triangle have no AI-specific local rule. The Court of Appeals’ May 2026 decision in Creech v. City of Raleigh did not reach the AI issue (see above), so no Raleigh-area appellate precedent on AI-hallucinated citations has issued.

Courts without AI orders (confirmed)

• U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina (M.D.N.C.): No district-wide AI order and no judge-specific AI standing order or chambers rule identified across the current bench, including in the June 1, 2026 local rule amendments. Bench includes Chief Judge Catherine C. Eagles; Judges William L. Osteen Jr., Thomas D. Schroeder, David A. Bragdon, Lindsey A. Freeman; Senior Judges N. Carlton Tilley Jr. and Loretta C. Biggs; Magistrate Judges L. Patrick Auld, Joi Elizabeth Peake, and JoAnna Gibson McFadden. Absence of an AI order means M.D.N.C. attorneys (including Durham-based firms) default to Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 verification duties and 2024 FEO 1.
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina (E.D.N.C.): No AI-specific standing order, local rule, or judicial-preference provision identified.
• NC Supreme Court: No statewide AI rule or policy adopted. The UNC School of Government noted in April 2026 that “North Carolina’s Supreme Court has not adopted a rule or policy governing the use of AI” (SOG blog).
• NC Court of Appeals: No administrative order on AI.

Legislation

No enacted North Carolina legislation directly governs attorney AI conduct. As of 2026-09-28, several 2025-2026 NC General Assembly bills addressing related AI topics remain in committee (verified at ncleg.gov): H934 (AI Regulatory Reform Act), re-referred to the Committee on Election Law 2025-05-06; S624 (AI Chatbots: Licensing/Safety/Privacy), referred to Senate Rules and Operations 2025-03-26; H375 (AI/Ban Deceptive Ads), referred to House committees 2025-03-13; and H1161 (Omnibus Artificial Intelligence Protections), referred to the Committee on Appropriations 2026-05-04. None directly regulates attorney conduct, and none has been enacted.

NC Governor’s Executive Order No. 24 (September 2, 2025) establishes a NC AI Leadership Council for state agencies. It does not regulate private attorneys: https://governor.nc.gov/executive-order-no-24-advancing-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence-benefits-all-north-carolinians.

What does my North Carolina malpractice carrier ask about AI at renewal?

Lawyers Mutual Insurance NC has published guidance citing 2024 FEO 1 directly and recommending written AI policies, AI use logs, AI disclosure language in client agreements, and human review checklists. As of this entry’s date, LMNC has not published a specific AI renewal-application questionnaire; the carrier’s guidance points to 2024 FEO 1 itself as the substantive standard. Firms should be ready to produce a written AI use policy, the vendor vetting file built on 2024 FEO 1’s considerations, and billing documentation showing AI efficiencies pass through to clients. For any matter in the Western District, add the verification procedure that supports the W.D.N.C. deemed certification. NC carriers and brokers are increasingly asking for this documentation at renewal.

What documentation should a North Carolina firm keep on file?

Every item below maps to 2024 FEO 1 or to one of the two court orders.

Month one (foundational)

1. (Owner: managing partner + firm administrator) Written AI use policy covering approved tools, prohibition on inputting client data into non-approved public AI, review and verification before delivery or filing, supervision chain, and billing rules. References 2024 FEO 1 as the governing standard.
2. (Owner: litigation lead) Citation verification checklist for every filing, with explicit personal-verification sign-off. Supports 2024 FEO 1 (a lawyer “may not abrogate her responsibilities under the Rules of Professional Conduct by relying upon AI”) and N.C. R. Civ. P. 11.
3. (Owner: litigation lead) W.D.N.C. verification procedure for every matter in the Western District: confirm before filing that factual contentions are supported, cited authorities exist and are accurately represented, and quotations are verbatim, since each filed document is deemed a certification of those points under the July 29, 2026 order; apply accuracy and authenticity checks to any discovery response AI was involved in generating or editing, which the order’s validation duty also reaches.

Months two and three (operational documentation)

1. (Owner: firm administrator + outside IT) Vendor due diligence file per 2024 FEO 1: for each AI tool, document vendor experience and reputation, security measures and confidentiality agreements, data retention and retrieval, and whether the provider retains information before and after services end or asserts proprietary rights to it.
2. (Owner: firm administrator) Attorney and staff training records documenting review of 2024 FEO 1, the firm’s AI policy, and AI-related CLE under Rule 1.1, Comment 8 competence duty.
3. (Owner: managing partner) Supervision protocol applying Rule 5.3 reasonable-efforts duties to AI tools and vendors, with documented review of AI output before any client deliverable or filing.

Months four to six (per-matter discipline)

These are recurring practices, not one-time projects: each new matter exercises them.

1. (Owner: matter lead attorney) Per-matter AI use notes logging attorney or staff name, tool used, task performed, human review completed, and date. Demonstrates continuous supervision under Rules 5.3(a) and (b).
2. (Owner: managing partner + billing partner) Engagement letter provisions. When AI performs substantive tasks (not just ordinary tasks such as research), include an informed-consent clause per 2024 FEO 1 and 2007 FEO 12. If the firm charges for AI, record the client’s consent, preferably in writing.
3. (Owner: billing partner) Billing discipline under 2024 FEO 1: bill hourly only for time actually spent; use flat fees with consent or AI expense charges the client has agreed to.
4. (Owner: matter lead attorney) Cabarrus County docket flag for matters in the Superior Court of Judicial District 25: flag the AI-evidence disclosure deadline (90 days before trial absent a contrary scheduling order) and the rule on recording proceedings.
5. (Owner: managing partner) Periodic review schedule for updated NC State Bar guidance, any new W.D.N.C. or county-level orders, and updated vendor terms. Also covers breach response under NC data breach notification statute G.S. 75-65 for any incident where client information processed by an AI tool is compromised.

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Primary source notes

Re-read 2026-09-28: 2024 FEO 1 and the three foundational opinions at ncbar.gov (their pages moved to the ethics-and-governing-rules path; the old adopted-opinions URLs redirect). W.D.N.C.’s July 29, 2026 order and Judge Orso’s June 2026 case management order were read at ncwd.uscourts.gov, and the superseded June 18, 2024 standing order is preserved on the court’s news page. The Cabarrus County order and local rules were read at nccourts.gov. The Creech opinion and docket were read at appellate.nccourts.org. Legislative statuses (H934, S624, H375, H1161) were checked at ncleg.gov; none has been enacted.