It Depends Where You Are

There is no general rule

People want one answer to this. There is not one, and that is the most useful thing to know.

Across courts that have addressed AI use, the requirements range from nothing at all, through certifying that any citations were verified by a human, through declaring any AI involvement whatsoever, to prohibiting it in filings.

Academic journals differ. Schools differ. Clients differ. Employers differ.

So this is a lookup, not a principle. The failure mode is confidently applying a rule you heard about somewhere else.

What is actually being asked

Read the requirements closely and a pattern appears. Most are not really about disclosure.

They ask you to certify that a human verified the work.

That is a different thing. It is not "tell us you used a tool". It is "confirm you checked what it produced".

This reframing matters, because it tells you what the rule is protecting against. Nobody is worried that a machine helped. They are worried that nobody checked.

The cases turned on checking

The well-known sanctions cases involving fabricated legal citations make this concrete.

What drew penalties was not the use of AI. In most of those jurisdictions AI use was permitted. It was that fabricated citations reached a filing without anyone verifying them.

In at least one case, a firm that had an AI policy in place was still sanctioned. Having the policy did not help, because the verification did not happen.

The lesson generalises well beyond law: a policy is not a control. Only the check is a control.

Find your rule

Three places, in order:

1. The specific venue. The judge's standing order, the journal's author guidelines, the client's contract, the course syllabus. Specific beats general.
2. Your professional body. Many have published formal guidance on competence, confidentiality, and supervision as they apply to AI.
3. Your employer's policy. Often stricter than either, and the one you are judged against internally.

If all three are silent, you are governed by the underlying duty: you are responsible for what goes out under your name.