Ohio Supreme Court AI Task Force — Final Report

In 2024, Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy convened an Artificial Intelligence Task Force to advise the Supreme Court of Ohio on how generative AI should — and should not — be used by the state's judges, court staff, and lawyers. The task force's final report is the most comprehensive judicial-branch AI document Ohio has produced. This page summarizes its structure and key recommendations and links to the official source.

Why the Court convened a task force

Generative AI moved from novelty to default infrastructure faster than any technology the profession has absorbed. Sanctions for AI-generated fake citations climbed from a handful of cases in 2023 to hundreds in 2024–2025. The Court's choice was simple: lead the conversation or be led by it. Ohio chose to lead.

Scope of the report

The report addresses AI use across four populations:

• Judges and judicial officers — appropriate use in chambers, decisional support, drafting, and case management; disclosure and recusal considerations.
• Court staff and clerks — administrative use, public-facing chatbots, and pro se support tools.
• Practicing attorneys — verification duties, client communication, billing implications, supervision of AI-using subordinates.
• Self-represented litigants — recognizing AI-assisted filings and the access-to-justice promise (and risk) of pro se AI use.

Core principles articulated by the task force

1. Human accountability. The user — judge, lawyer, clerk — remains responsible for every output. An AI tool is never a defense to a duty owed to the court or client.
2. Verification by default. AI output is a draft. Citations, holdings, statutory text, and factual claims must be independently verified against authoritative sources before any reliance.
3. Confidentiality discipline. Client confidences, sealed materials, and chambers deliberations must not be entered into AI systems that retain, train on, or expose data to third parties without explicit consent and contractual protection.
4. Transparency proportional to impact. Disclosure of AI use should track the materiality of the AI's contribution and the expectations of the tribunal — not be either reflexively required or reflexively concealed.
5. Bias awareness. AI systems encode the data they are trained on. Users must understand the bias profile of the tools they deploy, especially in sentencing, bail, and family-court contexts.
6. Lifecycle thinking. Procurement, training, monitoring, and decommissioning of AI tools are governance functions — not IT functions.

Recommendations to the Court

The task force recommended that the Supreme Court of Ohio:

• Issue guidance commentary under the Rules of Judicial Conduct addressing AI use.
• Develop and maintain an AI Resource Library (the basis of this page).
• Support targeted AI curriculum through the Ohio Judicial College.
• Decline, for now, to adopt a one-size-fits-all disclosure rule, instead permitting individual judges and local courts to address disclosure in standing orders and case management plans.
• Coordinate with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and the Board of Professional Conduct on AI-related ethics complaints and education.

LegalTek annotation — how this maps to COUNSEL

The COUNSEL Framework was built to operationalize ABA Formal Opinion 512 inside a working law practice. The Ohio task force's six core principles map cleanly onto COUNSEL's seven pillars:

• Competence (C) ← Human accountability + verification.
• Oversight (O) ← Supervision of AI-using subordinates.
• Use Cases (U) ← Task force's scope-by-population analysis.
• Non-disclosure (N) ← Confidentiality discipline.
• Supervision (S) ← Procurement and monitoring obligations.
• Ethics (E) ← Bias awareness and proportional transparency.
• Lifecycle (L) ← Lifecycle thinking.

What practitioners should take away

Ohio has not adopted a mandatory disclosure rule. That is a choice, not an oversight. It means the practitioner's duty floor is set by the Rules of Professional Conduct, the tribunal's standing orders, and the client's reasonable expectations — not by a bright-line court rule. If you are practicing in Ohio, your safest posture is to:

1. Read the report in full from the source link above.
2. Confirm each presiding judge's standing order before filing.
3. Document your verification workflow for AI-assisted work so you can defend it if asked.
4. Train every supervised attorney and paralegal on the same workflow.

For the official PDF and any subsequent updates, visit the source library above.