Michigan.
Attorney AI ethics guidance status for Michigan as of May 9, 2026. FAQ-style ethics guidance.
Michigan bar AI ethics status. #
The State Bar of Michigan published FAQ-style ethics guidance on AI for attorneys in 2024. The guidance covers competence, confidentiality, supervision, and verification under the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct.
Authoritative source: https://www.michbar.org/
Last verified: . If this row text disagrees with the linked source, the source controls.
What this means in practice. #
For practitioners admitted in Michigan, the formal guidance above is the binding professional-conduct anchor for AI use. The recurring duties: (1) maintain competence in the AI tool, (2) protect client confidentiality (do not submit confidential material to public-version AI tools), (3) supervise AI output, and (4) verify all factual and legal content before submission.
Cross-jurisdictional consideration: ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 2024) is broadly consistent with the Michigan guidance and serves as a federal anchor for multi-state practitioners. Where Michigan guidance is more specific or more restrictive than ABA Op. 512, the Michigan guidance controls within Michigan.
Comparison to ABA Op. 512. #
Michigan's FAQ-style guidance (2024) is implementation-oriented rather than doctrinal. The substantive duties tracked are consistent with ABA Op. 512: competence, confidentiality, supervision, verification. The FAQ format trades doctrinal precision for practitioner accessibility.
Federal court AI standing orders affecting Michigan practitioners. #
No widely-noted court-wide or individual-judge AI standing orders affecting Michigan's federal districts have surfaced as of May 2026. Individual judges may have issued orders that are not in our representative list. Practitioners should consult each assigned judge's standing orders before filing in any federal matter. The comprehensive corpus of federal-judge AI orders is maintained by Bloomberg Law and Law360 (both paywalled).
Last verified: . The comprehensive corpus of federal-judge AI orders is maintained by Bloomberg Law and Law360.
AI case-law context for Michigan. #
Michigan sits within the 6th Circuit (United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit). Decisions of the 6th Circuit are binding on the federal courts within Michigan; state-court decisions of the Michigan appellate system bind Michigan's state courts; Supreme Court decisions are binding on everyone. The Supreme Court has not yet issued a decision directly addressing attorney AI use, so the controlling case law is at the circuit and district levels:
No. 2:24-cv-12333, 2026 WL 373043 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2026) (Patti, U.S.M.J.) — civil-discovery decision on AI prompts and outputs as discoverable work product, reaching opposite conclusion to Heppner on related issues. Persuasive throughout the 6th Circuit.
N.D. Ohio — standing order on generative AI requiring disclosure, verification, and sanctions for non-compliance.
Mata v. Avianca and Park v. Kim are routinely cited in 6th Circuit AI sanctions matters.
Practitioners in Michigan should treat the cases above as the operating framework for AI-related conduct until Michigan-specific binding precedent or Michigan bar guidance controls a particular question. The verification duty under Mata and Park v. Kim has been routinely cited in sanctions matters across all federal circuits including the 6th Circuit.
Michigan legal landscape. #
- Eastern District of Michigan (E.D. Mich.)
- Western District of Michigan (W.D. Mich.)
The State Bar of Michigan is a mandatory unified bar. Two federal districts; E.D. Mich. (Detroit) is the busier docket.
Most US states have adopted the substance of ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8 — that the duty of competence requires lawyers to keep abreast of the benefits and risks of relevant technology. Whether Michigan has adopted Comment 8 verbatim, in modified form, or relies on the underlying Rule 1.1 text alone, the substantive duty of technological competence applies to AI-related practice in Michigan.
Michigan-specific FAQ.
Has the Michigan bar issued formal AI ethics guidance?
Yes. Michigan has issued: AI for Attorneys—FAQs (2024). The opinion applies the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct to attorney AI use. The primary source link in §01 above is authoritative; the comparison to ABA Op. 512 in §03 highlights where Michigan aligns with or diverges from the ABA framework.
Which federal districts cover Michigan?
Michigan has 2 federal districts: Eastern District of Michigan (E.D. Mich.) and Western District of Michigan (W.D. Mich.). Federal AI standing orders are typically issued at the individual-judge level. The Bloomberg Law and Law360 trackers maintain the comprehensive corpus of federal-judge AI orders nationwide.
Does Michigan have a mandatory unified bar?
Yes. The Michigan bar is a mandatory unified bar — all licensed attorneys must be members. AI ethics guidance issued by the bar applies to all admitted practitioners. Discipline for AI-related misconduct flows through the bar's formal disciplinary regime under the Michigan Supreme Court's plenary supervisory authority.
Does AI vendor diligence apply in Michigan?
Yes. The supervisory duty under Michigan's analog to Rule 5.3 (responsibilities regarding nonlawyer assistance) applies to AI vendor relationships. North Carolina's 2024 FEO 1 frames AI vendors explicitly under Rule 5.3, and that framing has been treated as persuasive in other jurisdictions including Michigan. Vendor diligence — privacy-policy review, data-retention terms, training-on-customer-data clauses — is a precondition to selecting an AI tool for client work.