Pennsylvania: AI Ethics Guidance for Law Firms

Bottom line for a 5-50 attorney Pennsylvania firm: Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 (May 22, 2024) is the governing standard for attorney AI use, paired with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s binding Interim Policy on judicial AI use (effective December 8, 2025) and an active enforcement record including a December 2025 Commonwealth Court memorandum opinion striking an attorney’s brief for AI-fabricated authority. The opinion’s citation-verification, confidentiality, and supervision obligations are concrete: every AI-generated citation must be independently verified against the primary source before filing. Pennsylvania appears repeatedly in the AI sanctions case tracker (live count below), making it one of the higher enforcement-volume states.

Start with: a written AI use policy keyed to Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200, a citation verification checklist for every AI-assisted filing, and a vendor confidentiality assessment for each AI tool the firm uses.

Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200

Citation: Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 (adopted May 22, 2024; published June 2024), issued jointly by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility and the Philadelphia Bar Association Professional Guidance Committee. Primary source PDF.

Status: Formal advisory opinion. The opinion expressly states it does not bind the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania or any court. Carries persuasive weight only.

What it requires

• Competence (RPC 1.1, including Comment 8): Attorneys must be proficient in AI tools to the same degree as traditional tools. That includes understanding how generative AI differs from traditional AI, its benefits, risks, and failure modes including hallucination and training bias.
• Citation verification (RPC 3.1, 3.3): All AI-generated citations must be independently verified for existence and accuracy against the primary source before filing or reliance. This is a concrete obligation, not aspirational.
• Confidentiality (RPC 1.6): No confidential client information may be input into AI systems lacking adequate confidentiality and security protections. Attorneys must understand whether a tool retains, shares, or trains on submitted data.
• Client communication and consent (RPC 1.4): Attorneys must explain how AI tools are being used and their potential impact on case outcomes. When AI use materially affects the representation, informed client consent must be obtained before using specific AI tools.
• Truthfulness (RPC 8.4(c)): AI-generated content submitted to any tribunal or third party must be truthful, accurate, and based on sound legal reasoning. The attorney remains fully responsible.
• Billing (RPC 1.5): AI-related costs must be reasonable. If AI tool charges are passed to clients they must be disclosed. AI efficiency savings should not be used to inflate fees.
• Supervision (RPC 5.1, 5.3): Supervising attorneys and firms must establish policies ensuring all personnel comply with professional conduct rules when using AI. Delegating AI tasks to a paralegal does not relieve the supervising attorney of responsibility.

Notable gaps

The opinion does not address whether AI use must be disclosed to courts absent a specific court order. It does not specify which AI tools or categories are acceptable, and does not address fee arrangements for contingency matters when AI reduces time. It is advisory: a Pennsylvania disciplinary authority could interpret the underlying rules differently.

Aggregator fabrication flag

Multiple aggregator websites assert that Pennsylvania mandates explicit AI disclosure in all court submissions effective August 2024. That claim cannot be traced to any primary source order, rule, or statute, and is treated as fabricated until proven otherwise. The operative attorney standard is Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200, and no statewide disclosure mandate exists.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Interim Policy on AI Use by Judicial Officers and Court Personnel

Citation: No. 643 Judicial Administration Docket; Pa.B. Doc. No. 25-1289; 55 Pa.B. (Sept. 20, 2025). Adopted September 9, 2025; effective December 8, 2025. Primary source PDF. Pennsylvania Bulletin entry.

Status: Binding interim administrative policy governing judicial officers and court personnel of the Unified Judicial System. Not a rule governing practicing attorneys, but it sets the confidentiality baseline the judiciary views as acceptable, and the precedent standard the courts will apply to attorneys by analogy. Non-public case information may not be shared with “Non-Secured AI Systems” (those that do not guarantee confidentiality, non-retention, and no model training). Court personnel remain “ultimately responsible for the completeness and accuracy” of all work product. The policy is explicitly interim; the AI Advisory Committee remains active and a permanent framework is anticipated.

On December 15, 2025, the Court Administrator of Pennsylvania issued General Ethics Guidance No. 2-2025, reinforcing that “the professional obligations to keep client confidences and to exercise candor toward the tribunal do not go away when using GenAI” and that “free, publicly available GenAI tools may not provide adequate confidentiality protections.”

What federal courts in Pennsylvania require for AI use in filings

No district-wide AI standing order exists in any of Pennsylvania’s three federal districts. Judge Michael M. Baylson (E.D. Pa.) maintains an individual Standing Order Re: Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in Cases Assigned to Judge Baylson (dated June 6, 2023). It requires that any attorney or pro se party who has used AI in preparing any complaint, answer, motion, brief, or other paper filed with the Court must, in a clear and plain factual statement, disclose that AI was used in any way in the preparation of the filing. The order also requires certification that each and every citation to the law or the record in the paper has been verified as accurate. Judge Kelley Hodge (E.D. Pa.) has reminded attorneys of existing Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b) and 26(g) obligations as applied to AI-assisted filings but has not issued a separate disclosure mandate. The operative federal default in cases without an individual judge order is Fed. R. Civ. P. 11.

What Pennsylvania state courts require for AI use in filings

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Interim Policy (above) governs judicial AI use, not attorney conduct. There is no Pennsylvania state-court rule mandating AI disclosure in attorney filings. The active enforcement venue is the Commonwealth Court (see below). See the tracker entry for the Supreme Court Interim Policy.

Has anyone been sanctioned for AI use in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania has more documented AI hallucination incidents than nearly any other state. Spotlight PA documented at least 13 Pennsylvania cases in 2025 containing confirmed or suspected AI hallucinations. Three are concrete enough to anchor the firm-level analysis.

Commonwealth Court Memorandum Opinion No. 1172 C.D. 2025 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Dec. 5, 2025)

Primary source PDF. The Commonwealth Court struck an attorney-filed brief that “admittedly contains numerous factual and legal errors” attributable to unverified AI-generated content, and denied the motion to file an amended brief. The opinion cites Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200’s requirement that attorneys “check and verify all citations and the material cited,” operationalizing the bar opinion as the standard the court will apply.

South Side Area School District v. Pennsylvania HRC, No. 78 MD 2025 (Pa. Commw. Ct.)

Hearings December 10-11, 2025; ongoing as of early 2026, no final sanctions order confirmed. Attorneys submitted a 50-page brief containing misquoted and fabricated passages from real cases, including fabricated quotes attributed to Bayada Nurses, Inc. v. Commonwealth (Pa. 2010). Judge Wolf confronted counsel at oral argument: “I read what I believe to be artificial intelligence hallucinations.”

Saber v. Navy Federal Credit Union, No. 2449 EDA 2024 (Pa. Super. Oct. 28, 2025)

Unreported, non-precedential. A pro se appellant cited fabricated AI-generated cases; the court applied appellate waiver, treating arguments unsupported by valid authority as undeveloped and waived. First documented Pennsylvania Superior Court acknowledgment of the AI hallucination problem.

What AI-related rules are pending in Pennsylvania?

No Pennsylvania legislation specifically targeting attorney AI conduct is currently pending. Adjacent bills (HB 1533 on AI liability, HB 1857 on consumer AI disclosure) address related areas but not attorney practice directly. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Interim Policy is, by its own terms, a placeholder for a permanent framework; the AI Advisory Committee’s recommendations may produce attorney-facing rules later.

How do malpractice carriers in Pennsylvania treat AI use?

Pennsylvania Insurance Department Notice 2024-04 (Pa.B. Doc. No. 24-484; 54 Pa.B. 1910; April 6, 2024) requires insurers operating in Pennsylvania to develop and maintain a written AI governance program. They must notify consumers when AI systems are used in decisions affecting them, conduct third-party vendor oversight and due diligence, and produce AI governance documentation during examinations. Malpractice carriers writing in Pennsylvania are subject to this notice and are themselves building AI governance frameworks. The supervision and verification obligations Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 places on firms map directly onto the standard-of-care analysis a carrier or broker will use after a hallucination-driven claim. The Commonwealth Court’s December 2025 brief-striking opinion is now an explicit data point in that analysis.

What does my Pennsylvania malpractice carrier ask about AI at renewal?

No Pennsylvania-domiciled malpractice carrier has published renewal-application items specific to AI as of this entry’s date. The substantive standard the carrier will evaluate against is Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 plus the Insurance Department’s Notice 2024-04 governance benchmarks. Firms should be ready to produce a written AI use policy, vendor confidentiality assessments, supervision and citation-verification protocols, and training records, with an incident log if any AI-assisted filing has produced an error. Firms with matters in front of Judge Baylson (E.D. Pa.) should also be ready to demonstrate a court-specific disclosure workflow. Confirm application items directly with the carrier or broker.

What documentation should a Pennsylvania firm keep on file?

Month one (foundational)

1. (Owner: managing partner + firm administrator) Written AI use policy referencing Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 as the governing standard. Identify approved tools, prohibit input of client confidential information into non-secured tools, require citation verification before any filing, and name the supervision chain for AI-assisted work product.
2. (Owner: litigation lead) Citation verification checklist for every AI-assisted filing: supervising attorney certifies all citations verified against primary sources and all quoted material verified against original text. The Commonwealth Court’s December 2025 opinion is now the in-state precedent for the cost of skipping this step.
3. (Owner: matter lead attorney) Judge-specific AI order check at the opening of each federal matter. Include an explicit Baylson workflow for E.D. Pa. cases assigned to that chambers (factual statement of AI use plus citation-verification certification).

Months two and three (operational documentation)

1. (Owner: firm administrator + outside IT) Vendor confidentiality assessment for each AI tool: data retention policy, training/retention status, data processing agreement, benchmarked against the Pennsylvania Insurance Department Notice 2024-04 framework (written governance program, vendor due diligence).
2. (Owner: managing partner + billing partner) Engagement letter provisions disclosing that the firm may use AI tools with appropriate safeguards. Include written client acknowledgment for sensitive matters. Addresses RPCs 1.4 and 1.6.
3. (Owner: firm administrator) Attorney and staff training records showing each attorney and relevant staff member has reviewed Joint Formal Opinion 2024-200 and the firm’s AI policy. Required by RPCs 5.1 and 5.3.

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 recording which tools were used, what was input, and what review and verification steps were taken before filing.
2. (Owner: managing partner) Incident log and periodic review capturing any instance where AI-generated output contained errors before filing and the corrective steps taken. Include a review schedule for new Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules, AI Advisory Committee output, and updated vendor terms.

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