Citing GenAI, Part II - Washington State Bar News

COLUMN > Write to Counsel

BY AMANDA K. STEPHEN

In March 2024, I wrote an article for this column entitled “Citing GenAI.”¹ At that time, ChatGPT was just over a year old, and we had no real rules about how, or even if, we needed to use citations to address the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in legal writing. But now, two different legal citation guides have released rules about citing GenAI outputs.

Last year, The Bluebook released its 22nd edition and included a new rule—Rule 18.3—that provided some guidance on citing to GenAI. As Professor David Ziff noted in his article “Everything You Need to Know About the New Edition of the Bluebook,” the new rule leaves much to be desired.² In fact, he recommended attorneys not use the rule to cite their search processes because it is impractical, can require the disclosure of privileged information, and does not appear to be required for use by practitioners due to its placement in The Bluebook’s Whitepages.³

But The Bluebook is no longer the only game in town. In May 2026, the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation published its 8th edition, which includes Rule 42 Generative Artificial Intelligence addressing GenAI citation, too. This article will walk you through the ALWD Guide’s helpful advice.

**Wait, what is the ALWD Guide?**

I am so glad that you asked! The ALWD Guide is a citation manual commissioned by the Association of Legal Writing Directors, a national nonprofit organization of legal writing professors. The ALWD Guide was first published in 2000 and was meant to provide law professors with a more teachable and user-friendly alternative to The Bluebook. Many law schools use the ALWD Guide instead of The Bluebook as their main citation guide and some federal courts, such as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, have also adopted rules permitting its use.⁴ Its current author, Professor Carolyn V. Williams, is a national expert on GenAI and legal education.⁵

The current author of the ALWD guide, Professor Carolyn V. Williams, is a national expert on GenAI and legal education.

**But we follow The Bluebook in Washington, right?**

It’s true. GR 14 states: “Citations shall conform with the format prescribed by the Reporter of Decisions” and Appendix 1 to the rule includes the Office of Reporter of Decisions Style Sheet, which identifies the 20th edition of The Bluebook (not the 22nd edition) as “the basic citation resource for Washington appellate court opinions[.]”⁶ But because the Style Sheet specifies the 20th edition, it arguably does not require use of the new rules on GenAI citation now included in the 22nd edition.

If there are no mandatory GenAI citation rules to follow in Washington, attorneys must use their best judgment about if and how to cite to GenAI. Because the ALWD Guide’s Rule 42 is more practical for attorneys than The Bluebook’s Rule 18.3, it can serve as a helpful model for trying to decide if, when, and how to cite GenAI use and outputs.

So, what does Rule 42 say?

Rule 42 has six subrules, each addressing a different aspect of citing or acknowledging GenAI use. Let’s go through them one at a time.

42.1 Citation v. Acknowledgment

The ALWD Guide draws a clear distinction between the use of a “citation” to convey the source of information and an “acknowledgment” to disclose your use of a tool in building your document.⁷ “Citation gives credit to the source of an idea or knowledge” whereas an “[a]cknowledgement is used to give credit to a person or tool that contributed to how you expressed your ideas.”⁸ For example, if you were writing a law review article and set out a rule from a judicial opinion in that article, you would include a “citation” after the rule to that opinion because that is where the rule came from. If a researcher helped you find that opinion, you would not include a “citation” explaining that, but you might “acknowledge” the researcher’s contributions to the article in a footnote. However, not every tool will merit an acknowledgment. If you used Westlaw to find the opinion yourself, you would not include either a “citation” or an “acknowledgment” that you used a research tool to find the case.

42.2 Considerations Affecting AI Citation or Acknowledgment

The ALWD Guide then gives advice for law students, practitioners, and legal scholars about how they might choose whether a citation or an acknowledgment is necessary.

For law students and legal scholars, the ALWD Guide recommends checking with professors, administrators, employers, and publishers to understand what GenAI policies apply and whether they require any acknowledgments or citations.⁹

For practitioners, the ALWD Guide recommends considering several factors before deciding whether a citation or acknowledgment is necessary:

Court rules and standing orders. Particular jurisdictions or judges may have court rules or standing orders on GenAI use, so check those first.¹⁰
Privileged information. Consider whether the required format for citation or acknowledgment might reveal a client’s confidential information or your attorney work product and evaluate whether an exception to disclosure applies.¹¹
Document type. Consider whether the type of document you are drafting has historically required the use of citations or acknowledgment.¹² For example, attorneys who use form books to draft contract provisions have not been expected to cite to or acknowledge that use in the past.¹³ So, using GenAI to draft boilerplate contract provisions also probably does not require citation or acknowledgment.¹⁴
Audience expectations. Consider whether clients, supervising attorneys, or judges would expect a citation or acknowledgment.¹⁵

For all users, as a best practice, make sure that you have verified whether any applicable rules or policies prohibit GenAI use or require acknowledgment or citation before you use the GenAI tool so that you can ensure you are following any restrictions or requirements.

Of course, if you have used GenAI in your writing process and no rules require citation or acknowledgment in your particular writing context, you will have to decide whether to include one anyway. That may not be an easy decision.

Unfortunately, even if you use GenAI responsibly, some audiences may believe your work to be less credible or more prone to error. As the ALWD Guide explains, “The reality is that acknowledgment cuts both ways: Some readers may distrust your work if you acknowledge AI use, while others may distrust it if you [use it and] do not [acknowledge that use]. You should understand the risks on both sides before you choose how you want to proceed.”¹⁶

42.3 Acknowledgment of AI Use

This rule explains what an “acknowledgment” should look like under the ALWD Guide. While the actual content is flexible, it should do three things: (1) “identify the large language model (LLM) or tool used, including the version;” (2) “explain how the LLM was used;” and (3) “affirm that you evaluated and verified the final work and take full responsibility for the content.”¹⁷ Here is the example the ALWD Guide gives of an acknowledgment that explains that a GenAI tool was used during the writing process:

ChatGPT-4o was used to assist with revising the first draft for grammar, flow, and conciseness. The human author did not rely on it for the truth of any assertions but did review and edit all revisions. The final language reflects the human author’s own understanding of the content.¹⁸

You can place an acknowledgment in a footnote or an endnote, in an acknowledgment section or preface, or appended to a specific sentence or heading depending on how or where you used GenAI.¹⁹

42.4 Full Citations to the Substance of AI-Generated Material

The ALWD Guide stresses that full citation to GenAI output should be rare and limited to circumstances where “you are essentially documenting the fact that the AI responded a certain way rather than relying on the AI as an authoritative source.”²⁰ Because your citations should be to primary or secondary authorities, rather than to a GenAI tool’s description of primary or secondary authorities, it is unlikely that you will need to cite GenAI output in most legal writing contexts. So, if you use GenAI to find a judicial opinion that you want to rely on in a brief, you would not cite to the GenAI output for what that opinion says. Instead, you would independently find that opinion in your legal research database of choice and then cite directly to the opinion.

But if you are in a position where you need to cite the actual output of a GenAI tool, the ALWD Guide recommends including the prompter, the LLM name and version, a chat summary, and a parenthetical that says “chat initiated” followed by the month, day, and year.²¹ It gives this example citation:

Carolyn V. Williams, OpenAI ChatGPT-4o, Brainstorming alternate chapter titles (chat initiated Aug. 6, 2025).²²

Note that the chat summary in the citation does not require an exact quote of the entire prompt as The Bluebook’s Rule 18.3 does, alleviating the chance that your citation will expose privileged information or be overly wordy. You can use this citation form for text, pictures, and other materials generated by GenAI.²³

42.5 Full Citations to the Substance of AI-Generated Material in Academic Footnotes

For legal scholars and law students whose publishers require citations to conform to Rule 18.3 in the 22nd edition of The Bluebook, this subrule shows them how to construct such a citation. The ALWD Guide includes this information because law students at schools that only use the ALWD Guide may not have The Bluebook. Because practitioners reading this article have direct access to The Bluebook, those citation mechanics are not repeated here.

Verify whether any applicable rules or policies prohibit GenAI use or require acknowledgment or citation before you use the GenAI tool.

42.6 Short Citations to the Substance of AI-generated Material

In general, the ALWD Guide says that Id. is an appropriate short citation for all GenAI-
related citations.²⁴ If Id. is not appropriate, use the prompter’s surname or the chat summary followed by a comma, then a “supra” and “at” the pinpoint citation, if available.²⁵ So, for the citation in Rule 42.4 above, the short cite could be Id. or Williams, supra.

If using academic footnotes, include “note” and the footnote number containing the full citation after “supra” and before the pinpoint citation.²⁶ Consequently, if the same citation appeared in full in footnote 12, the short citation might be Williams, supra note 12.

Practical Takeaways

As of now, there are no mandatory GenAI citation rules for Washington attorneys. Of course, you will want to check whether your particular audience—judge, employer, or even client—has any rules about whether and how to acknowledge the use of or cite to GenAI before you use any GenAI tools. If acknowledgment is necessary, Rule 42.3 can serve as a good model for that acknowledgment. Additionally, if you need to craft a citation to content generated by GenAI, Rule 42.4 provides a practical citation form that will not disclose privileged information.

As is always the case with new technologies, things are likely to change. So, I will see you for Part III when this advice becomes obsolete, too.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amanda K. Stephen is an assistant teaching professor at the University of Washington School of Law, where she teaches first-year legal analysis, research, and writing.

NOTES

1. Amanda K. Stephen, “Citing GenAI,” Washington State Bar News at 18 (March 2024).

2. David J.S. Ziff, “Everything You Need to Know About the New Edition of the Bluebook,” Washington State Bar News at 20 (Oct. 2025).

3. Id.

4. 11^th Cir. R. 28-1(j), available at www.ca11.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/courtdocs/clk/Rules%20Bookmarked.APR26.pdf.

5. For more information about the ALWD Guide, see www.alwd.org/about-guide.

6. GR 14 Appendix 1, available at www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/pdf/GR/GA_GR_14_Appendix.pdf.

7. Carolyn V. Williams, ALWD Guide to Legal Citation 466 (8th ed. 2026).

8. Id.

9. Id. at 466-68.

10. Id. at 467.

11. Id.

12. Id.

13. Id.

14. Id.

15. Id.

16. Id. at 469.

17. Id. at 468-69.

18. Id. at 469.

19. Id.

20. Id. at 470.

21. Id.

22. Id. at 471.

23. Id. at 470.

24. Id. at 474.

25. Id.

26. Id. at 475.