The Arizona Supreme Court has added the ethical obligation of technology competence to the state’s judicial ethics code. The court’s decision to explicitly insert a technology competence requirement into its rules for judges is a first in the nation. The need to cope with and ethically deploy artificial intelligence technologies appears to be the leading motivation for the rules change.
Competence in the performance of judicial duties requires … knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with technology relevant to service as a judicial officer.
Effective Jan. 1, 2026, Rule 2.5 of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct will have a new Comment 1, which reads:
Competence in the performance of judicial duties requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary to perform a judge’s responsibilities of judicial office, including the use of, and knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with, technology relevant to service as a judicial officer.
The Arizona high court’s action appears to be the first state to explicitly write a duty of technology competence into its judicial ethics code. Judicial ethics opinions in Michigan (Ethics Op. JL-155, Oct. 27, 2023) and West Virginia (Ethics Op. 2023-22, Oct. 13, 2023) have previously found a duty of technology competence implied in a judicial officer’s general duty of competency, however.
Coping With AI in the Courts
Without question, policymaking work in judicial ethics is being driven by generative artificial intelligence, a technology that is having widespread impact on judicial operations. Not only is AI making its presence known as the author of dubiously researched briefs and pleadings, and the source of new forms of computer-generated evidence, it is also a topic of intense interest among courts that would like to harness artificial intelligence technologies to promote efficiencies in their own operations.
The presence of artificial intelligence technologies in judicial operations raises a number of open questions in the area of judicial ethics. Some of them are:
- Is AI-generated content a forbidden ex parte communication with the court?
- Is AI-generated content a forbidden “external influence” when used to draft judicial opinions?
- Does the use of open AI systems in judicial operations risk the inadvertent release of confidential information?
- Will use of AI tools introduce bias or prejudice into decision-making processes and other judicial operations?
- Will use of AI tools create a risk of bias or discrimination when used for hiring clerks and other staff?
Judicial officers also have a duty to supervise court personnel to ensure that they are using artificial intelligence tools in an ethical and lawful manner.
Ethics aside, artificial intelligence is also giving the judiciary novel legal issues to resolve. For example, just last month, in T.B. v. Big Bros. Big Sisters of N.Y.C., No. 452864 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., New York Cty., Aug. 21, 2025), a state trial court was called upon to decide whether an excerpt from a ChatGPT session was privileged attorney work product. The excerpt, which purported to summarize a New York Times article, was used during a deposition. After the deposition, the defendant’s lawyers contended that the article had been “hallucinated” by ChatGPT, and they filed a motion demanding a copy of the entire chat session. The plaintiffs were unable to produce the chat session used during the deposition.
Judicial Tech Competence Is Expected
A proposal to explicitly recognize a duty of technology competence for judges was raised in Arizona in Generative AI: Ethical Best Practices for Lawyers and Judges, written by the Arizona Supreme Court’s Steering Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts. “Lawyers and judges have duties of competence and diligence,” the steering committee wrote in 2024. “Lawyers have a duty to keep abreast of the risks and benefits of technology in connection with their law practice, and judges appear to have the same duty in their judicial work.”
The steering committee filed a petition to make the change with the Arizona high court in 2024. Receiving no comments, the court took action explicitly adopting a judicial duty of technology competence on Aug. 27, 2025.
The National Center for State Courts, while not a regulator of the judiciary (a duty that belongs principally to state supreme courts), has been active educating state judicial officers on their ethical obligations with respect to emerging technologies, particularly the hot-button issue of artificial intelligence. MCSC policymakers believe that Rule 2.5 (Competence, Diligence, and Cooperation) of Model Code of Judicial Conduct already requires judges to “keep current with technology and to know the benefits and risks associated with all types of technology relevant to service as a judicial officer.”
According to the NCSC, judges must:
- possess a basic understanding of artificial intelligence and be able to analyze the risks associated with using artificial intelligence for research and drafting
- determine which judicial operations can be improved with artificial intelligence, and which judicial operations may not be appropriate for artificial intelligence
- become competent in the use of common generative artificial intelligence tools such as OpenAI ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot
- be able to identify the need for policy reform raised by the use of artificial intelligence in judicial operations
The new ethical obligation borrows language from the widely cited source of the lawyer’s technology competence obligation, Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 (Competence) of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Comment 8, adopted by the ABA in 2012 and subsequently inserted in 40 state lawyer ethics codes, explains that a competent lawyer “should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”
The District of Columbia is the most recent jurisdiction to explicitly adopt a professional duty of technology competence for lawyers, albeit in a slightly different form. In D.C., lawyers are ethically obligated to consider “procedures and technology meeting the standards of competent practitioners” will advance their client’s interests.
It remains to be seen whether other courts will follow Arizona’s example. The ABA’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the text on which most state judicial ethics codes are based, was last amended in 2010.
