US | Incident Report
Regulatory Action
2026-01-13
California SB 574 set for hearing on attorney and arbitrator duties when using GenAI
AI Model: Unspecified generative AI tool
I. Executive Summary
California legislative materials and contemporaneous reporting highlighted SB 574, a bill proposing statutory guardrails for attorneys’ and arbitrators’ use of generative AI. The bill would impose duties around confidentiality, accuracy verification, and correction of hallucinated outputs, and would restrict arbitrators from delegating decision-making to generative AI. The measure is framed as codifying and reinforcing existing professional responsibility expectations in the context of generative AI tools.
II. Key Facts
- SB 574 was set for a California Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 13, 2026.• Would obligate attorneys to keep confidential/nonpublic information out of public generative AI systems.• Would require reasonable steps to verify accuracy and correct erroneous or hallucinated AI output used by an attorney.• Would bar filings containing citations the responsible attorney has not personally read and verified, including AI-provided citations.• Would prohibit arbitrators from delegating any part of decision-making to generative AI and restrict reliance on AI-generated information outside the record absent disclosure.
III. Regulatory & Ethical Implications
SB 574, if enacted, would operationalize “human-in-the-loop” and confidentiality controls into California statutory duties for legal services and arbitration. It would also create a clear compliance baseline for motions challenging AI-assisted filings and for arbitration award challenges where AI tools were used.