California SB 574

Governor Gavin Newsom approved SB 574 on September 30, 2026, and it was filed with the Secretary of State that day. The act contains no urgency clause or separate operative date. January 1, 2027 is its effective date under the ordinary rule for statutes enacted at a regular session. Cal. Const., art. IV, § 8(c)(1).

Existing duties of competence, diligence, and confidentiality continue to apply before that date. The new attorney provision expressly preserves the duty to exercise reasonable competence and diligence. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6068.1(a)(1)

Keep the practice of law with the attorney

The statute prohibits an attorney from delegating the practice of law to generative AI. It then specifies duties for attorneys who use generative AI to assist in their practice. The lawyer remains responsible for professional judgment and the resulting work. § 6068.1(a)(2)–(3)

Restrict access to protected information

An attorney must not enter confidential, personal identifying, or other nonpublic information into a generative AI system unless access to the information entered is restricted to the attorney and persons the attorney authorizes under obligations to protect its confidentiality. The statutory test concerns access to the information; it does not turn solely on whether a product is labeled public, private, or enterprise. § 6068.1(a)(3)(A)

The definition of personal identifying information includes driver’s license numbers, birth dates, Social Security numbers, criminal identification numbers, addresses and phone numbers of parties, victims, witnesses, and court personnel, medical or psychiatric information, financial information, account numbers, and material sealed by court order or deemed confidential by rule or statute. § 6068.1(b)(2)

Verify output and correct errors

The attorney must take reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of generative AI output, including all case and statutory citations, and correct erroneous or hallucinated output in any material the attorney uses. This duty reaches more than court filings. An AI summary used to advise a client also requires review. § 6068.1(a)(3)(B)

Example: a client advice memorandum. If AI summarizes a contract or recommends a course of action, the attorney must take reasonable steps to verify the output and correct errors in material used to advise the client. Comparing the summary with the contract and relevant law is a suggested method. Section 6068.1 does not prescribe a particular review procedure, and this duty applies even when the memorandum will never be filed in court. § 6068.1(a)(3)(B)

The definition extends beyond text

Generative AI includes systems that generate derived synthetic text, images, video, or audio emulating the structure and characteristics of their training data. The law’s scope therefore includes more than chatbots and drafting tools. § 6068.1(b)(1)

Amended section 128.7 prohibits a brief, pleading, motion, or other paper filed in court from containing citations that an attorney responsible for submitting it has not personally verified. The requirement expressly includes citations supplied by generative AI. It also applies when the citations came from a colleague, a prior brief, or conventional research. § 128.7(b)(2)(A)

This is a separate obligation from taking reasonable steps to verify AI output. A firm’s review process should identify the responsible submitting attorney and give that attorney the sources needed for personal verification. Staff review alone does not perform the attorney’s statutory duty.

The statute does not define which attorney is responsible for submission on a team or specify how several attorneys may divide verification. It uses responsibility for submission rather than simply identifying the signer. A suggested firm policy is to assign that responsibility expressly and ensure the assigned attorney personally checks every citation in the final filing. This is a conservative workflow. The statute does not specify how to allocate verification among responsible attorneys or require every contributing attorney to repeat it.

Example: a brief assembled from earlier work. Reusing a citation does not exempt it from the personal verification requirement in a covered filing. A paralegal’s or software’s check alone does not satisfy the requirement for verification by an attorney responsible for submission. A suggested workflow is to provide that attorney with the sources and track changes to citations. The statute does not prescribe a tracking system or require a fresh check by every lawyer who works on the brief. § 128.7(b)(2)(A)

As a practical method, open the underlying authority, check the cited passage and quotation, and confirm that the source supports the proposition. Check the authority’s current status when relevant. These are suggested verification steps; SB 574 does not prescribe a particular research platform or verification form.

Sanctions and the discovery exclusion

Violations of subdivision (b) are subject to section 128.7’s sanctions provisions, including notice, an opportunity to respond, and the applicable correction procedures. Subdivision (g) continues to exclude discovery disclosures, requests, responses, objections, and motions from section 128.7. That exclusion does not eliminate the separate attorney duties under section 6068.1. § 128.7(c)–(g)

A party’s sanctions motion generally must be served separately and held for 21 days to permit withdrawal or correction before it is filed. Absent exceptional circumstances, a firm is jointly responsible for violations by its partners, associates, and employees. The enacted section 128.7(d)(1) bars monetary sanctions against a represented party for a violation of subdivision (b)(2), the new citation provision. These are conditions on sanctions, not automatic penalties for using AI. § 128.7(c)(1), (d)(1)

Example: AI-assisted discovery responses. Section 128.7(g) excludes discovery requests, responses, objections, and motions from that section’s requirements. Section 6068.1 still requires protected-input safeguards and reasonable steps to verify AI output and correct errors in material used. Serving responses on another party, without submitting them to a court, does not itself trigger court disclosure. If AI-assisted discovery material is submitted to the court, section 6068.1’s disclosure provision separately applies. § 128.7(g); § 6068.1(a)(3)

An attorney using generative AI to assist in the practice of law must disclose that use to the court for all documents submitted to the court. The enacted text does not limit the requirement to briefs, false citations, or documents containing unedited AI output. It does not prescribe the disclosure’s wording, placement, or form. § 6068.1(a)(3)(C)

When an attorney uses generative AI to assist in legal practice and to create content provided to the public, the attorney must consider whether to disclose that use. This is a duty to consider disclosure, rather than a categorical requirement to label every public communication. § 6068.1(a)(3)(C)

Example: a firm alert or educational article. When an attorney uses AI to create public content as part of legal practice, section 6068.1 requires consideration of disclosure; it does not dictate the decision to disclose. A suggested process is to evaluate AI’s role, the audience, and the risk of misleading readers. The statute does not prescribe those factors or a written record. Whether a particular educational activity falls within the practice-of-law trigger requires attention to its circumstances. Section 128.7 does not itself extend personal citation verification to public articles.

The statute does not supply a disclosure form

Section 6068.1 does not define a minimum amount of AI use that triggers court disclosure or expressly exempt editing, summarizing, or AI features embedded in ordinary software. For implementation, identify where generative AI contributes to court documents and check applicable rules and orders for how to disclose it. Do not assume a firm’s internal threshold appears in the statute.

As a suggested practice, assign someone to track AI use through revisions and confirm that the required disclosure is made to the court. The statute does not require a separate declaration or a particular placement within the document.

SB 574 addresses specified duties. Its silence on other subjects does not eliminate professional obligations. The California State Bar’s 2026 Practical Guidance explains how California duties apply to generative and agentic AI. ABA Formal Opinion 512 interprets the ABA Model Rules; it is not itself California law.

Client communication and fees

Evaluate client communication and informed-consent duties based on the tool, confidentiality risks, and circumstances of the representation. Follow applicable client instructions about AI use. For hourly matters, bill time actually spent rather than time the work would have taken without AI. These issues arise under existing professional duties, not a new fee schedule or universal client-notice rule in SB 574.

Supervision, autonomous tools, and bias

The California guidance addresses staff supervision, training, access controls, and safeguards for agentic systems. It calls for lawyer review and approval before court transmission and prohibits autonomous court filings or representations on the lawyer’s behalf. It also addresses biased outputs under existing discrimination rules. Incorporate these subjects into firm policies alongside the new statutory duties.

California State Bar Practical Guidance (2026) · ABA Formal Opinion 512

An arbitrator must not delegate any part of the decisionmaking process to a generative AI tool. The statute preserves the arbitrator’s duties of neutrality, reasonable competence, and diligence. § 1282.1(a), (b)(1)

An arbitrator also must not rely on AI-generated information outside the record without appropriate disclosure to the parties beforehand and, as far as practical, allowing them to comment on its use. Disclosure of outside-record information does not authorize delegation of the decisionmaking process. § 1282.1(b)(2)

The Judicial Council must publicly revisit Standard 10.80 of the California Standards of Judicial Administration and revise it as necessary to reflect further development of generative AI. This provision directs review of the standard; it does not itself enact the attorney disclosure requirement as a rule for judges. § 180

SB 574 also changes the State Bar’s voluntary certification program for alternative dispute resolution firms, providers, and practitioners. The program must include procedures for the State Bar or an approved professional organization to receive, investigate, and resolve complaints about noncompliance with applicable ethical standards. § 6173(b)(2)

The information-production provision applies only to mediations in which a party is self-represented. Lawyer-client privileged and attorney work product material requires written consent from each holder; submitting a complaint counts as consent for material of which the complainant is the sole holder. Production under the provision preserves the specified privileges, protections, and confidentiality duties. § 6173(b)(2)(B)–(C)

Complaint proceedings are private and confidential. After a decision, the State Bar may disclose information or records that do not reveal confidential or privileged communications, including the name of a provider found to have violated an ethical standard, remedial action, and its general basis. The statute also protects submitted information from disclosure under the California Public Records Act. § 6173(b)(2)(D)–(F)