This is general information, not legal advice, and reflects Ontario law and publicly available regulatory guidance as of September 5, 2026. Effective dates and requirements below are drawn from each body's own published source, linked in the table; confirm current text directly with that court, tribunal, or regulator before relying on it.
Why one table, not five separate lookups
A lawyer who checks only their own court's practice direction, or only the Law Society's generative-AI guidance, can still miss an obligation that applies to the same filing. These five requirements live in five different documents, on five different timelines, and only one of them is a "disclosure" rule in the everyday sense — the rest are certification duties that never require saying "AI was used" at all. The table below puts the effective date and the actual requirement side by side, with a link to the full explainer for the two DROZlegal has already covered in depth elsewhere on this site.
The five Ontario AI rules at a glance
| Body / Authority | Effective Date | What It Requires | Applies To | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario Superior Court of Justice — AI practice directions (civil, family, criminal) | Feb 12, 2026 (news release confirming coverage of civil, family & criminal proceedings) | Verify all AI-generated legal information against authoritative sources before relying on it or filing it; comply with the existing Rule 4.06.1 citation-authenticity certification; hyperlink cited cases to CanLII in factums, compendiums, and books of authorities; supervise any AI use by staff. | Lawyers, self-represented litigants, and their staff in SCJ civil, family, and criminal proceedings | ontariocourts.ca |
| Ontario Land Tribunal — AI practice direction | Mar 30, 2026 (hearing events commencing on or after this date) | The first paragraph of any filed document containing AI-generated content must declare it and name the person who reviewed and verified that content and any authorities it cites; a missing or false declaration can support a costs award. | Parties, participants, and witnesses filing with the OLT | olt.gov.on.ca |
| Ontario Regulation 275/26 — Rules of Civil Procedure amendment | Sep 1, 2026 | The person signing a factum must certify they are satisfied any quoted passage accurately reflects its source authority (Rule 4.06.1); expert witnesses must certify the same for quotations in their reports on the revised Form 53 (Rule 53.03). | Anyone signing a factum; expert witnesses in Ontario civil proceedings | practicePRO |
| Law Society of Ontario — generative AI guidance | Apr 2024 (ongoing guidance; no single fixed effective date) | Confirms three existing conduct rules already cover generative AI: independently verify AI output before relying on it (Competence, 3.1-2); know a tool's data handling before client information goes in (Confidentiality, 3.3-1); and supervise AI-assisted work by staff (Supervision, 6.1-1). | Every LSO-licensed lawyer and paralegal in Ontario | Our full explainer |
| Legal Aid Ontario — Lawyer Self-Report AI attestation | Jan 2026 (first appeared on the report covering the 2025 practice year, due Mar 31, 2026) | Roster lawyers must confirm annually, on the Lawyer Self-Report, that they have read and comply with three named LSO generative-AI documents. | LAO roster lawyers who accept certificates and bill LAO | Our full explainer |
Table last verified against each body's own published source on September 5, 2026. Rules change; check the linked source directly before relying on a date or requirement above.
Three things the table above compresses
- Row 1 isn't one document. The Superior Court's civil, family, and criminal practice directions each carry their own AI section with slightly different wording; the civil version sits at Part J(12) of the Consolidated Civil Provincial Practice Direction.
- Row 2 is the only true disclosure rule here. Rows 1 and 3 are certification duties — verify and stand behind what's filed — not requirements to say "AI was used." The Ontario Land Tribunal is the one body that requires an actual declaration naming a reviewer. See our full breakdown of that certification-versus-disclosure distinction.
- None of these substitute for each other. A lawyer filing an OLT appeal that touches an SCJ matter, using AI on both, can owe row 1's verification duty, row 2's declaration, and row 4's underlying LSO guidance on the very same file.
Where to go deeper on any one of these
This tracker deliberately stays narrow: five rows, one column of durable facts each. Two related pages on this site cover different ground entirely. Our case tracker counts actual sanctioned outcomes across Canadian courts and tribunals — not rules like the ones above — and our explainer on the Mazaheri decision covers what happened to one Ontario lawyer who ignored a certification duty like row 3's. For the certification-versus-disclosure distinction behind rows 1 and 2, see our full breakdown of Ontario's AI disclosure duty. The Law Society guidance behind row 4 gets its own full treatment in LSO Generative AI Guidance, Explained, and the Legal Aid Ontario attestation behind row 5 in our explainer on the 2026 LAO Self-Report rule. If the real question is broader than any single rule — whether your firm is ready to use AI at all — start with our firm-level AI readiness checklist instead. And for the one Ontario court this tracker's five rows don't reach, see whether the Court of Appeal for Ontario requires AI disclosure.
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