AI Rules for Missouri Law Firms
Last verified July 8, 2026
Missouri has one bar opinion governing how attorneys use generative AI and one appellate ruling showing exactly what happens when a firm doesn't follow it. Together they set a clear, low-ambiguity standard: verify everything AI produces, protect client confidences in the tools you use, and expect a court to sanction you if you don't.
Where Missouri Stands
Missouri's Office of Legal Ethics Counsel and the Advisory Committee of the Supreme Court of Missouri adopted Informal Opinion 2024-11, which applies existing Rules of Professional Conduct directly to generative AI: Rule 4-1.1 (competence), Rule 4-1.6 (confidentiality), Rule 4-3.3 (candor to the tribunal), Rule 4-3.4 (fairness to opposing party and counsel), and Rules 4-5.1 through 4-5.4 (supervisory responsibilities). There is no separate AI statute or court-wide standing order in Missouri; the opinion is the operative guidance.
What Your Firm Must Do
Under Informal Opinion 2024-11, your firm must vet any AI tool for confidentiality risk before client data touches it, independently verify all AI-generated output before it goes into a filing or client communication, supervise any staff or attorney use of AI under the same standard as other delegated work, and check the AI-specific orders of each tribunal you appear before, since individual courts can impose their own requirements on top of the opinion.
Malpractice and Carrier Considerations
Kruse v. Karlen, decided by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, on February 13, 2024, is the sanctions baseline carriers and opposing counsel will point to in Missouri. The court dismissed the appeal and awarded $10,000 in frivolous-appeal damages after 22 of 24 citations in the brief turned out to be fictitious AI output. The lesson from the case is procedural, not aspirational: every citation in a Missouri filing needs a human to have actually read the case it points to.
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