The U of Chicago Law School has a solution to the AI dilemma. Here it is:Rethinking Legal Education in the AI Era
Overview
Artificial Intelligence is already impacting higher
education and the legal profession, and the pace of change appears only to be
accelerating. It is thus critical for us to use this moment to carefully
reflect on how legal education should adapt. This memo describes the approach
we are taking to legal education in the AI era.
The University of Chicago Law School has long been committed
to providing our students with the most rigorous legal education possible. This
commitment manifests itself through our faculty's dedication to teaching, our
culture of challenging ideas through Socratic questioning and debate, and our
grading policies that motivate students to engage with the material and that
convey informative assessments of student performance to prospective employers.
With AI disrupting higher education, our commitment to rigorous legal education
also must mean openness to even rapid adaptation.
A willingness to rethink our practices is consistent with
our law school's long history of innovation. We were the first law school to
conceive of legal education as a graduate-level program and award the Juris
Doctor degree. We also made pioneering contributions to interdisciplinary legal
education that incorporates insights from the humanities, social sciences, and
other academic disciplines, and to the creation of legal aid clinics that
brought students into real-world cases.
We began the process of reflecting on how we should adjust
our teaching in response to AI shortly after OpenAI publicly released ChatGPT
at the end of 2022. Our law school formed an AI committee in early 2023 and
began releasing policies and guidance on the use of AI. Since then, we have
added an AI module into our first-year legal research and writing program,
introduced several upper-level courses on AI and the law, founded an AI Lab to
teach our students how to develop AI tools to help improve access to justice,
and negotiated licenses with leading AI companies so that our students,
faculty, and staff have access to the resources used by practicing lawyers.
Over the last year, we embarked on a more ambitious effort
to reflect on how we should adapt our curriculum and policies in response to
AI. This effort included extensive consultation with our community, including
alumni, leaders of law firms, business leaders, legal technology executives,
and law firm associates, as well as internal stakeholders at the Law School,
including our faculty, staff, and students. We also surveyed the emerging
academic and professional literature on how AI is changing legal practice and
student learning, and how law schools can and should respond. And we have had
steadfast support from our University of Chicago leadership, who have
championed a skeptical, ethical, and ambitious approach to AI.
The feedback we have received throughout this process has
been consistent: We need to ensure that our students actually learn to think
critically, strategically, and independently without relying on AI; but we also
must face the reality that AI tools are already widely available to our
students, and our graduates will be expected to be prepared to use them in
legal practice.
Our Strategic Vision
Based on what we learned from our consultations this year
and our experience over the past three years, we have developed a strategic
vision of how we should adapt legal education to the AI era. That vision has
three themes:
1. Developing AI-resilient pedagogy and assessment;
2. Elevating the "essential human" skills that
distinguish excellent lawyers; and
3. Teaching the responsible, effective, and ethical use of
AI.
First, rather than attempting to ban AI or to ignore its
risks to learning, our pedagogy and assessment should be designed to ensure our
students learn how to think critically and solve legal problems with sound
professional judgment. We thus need to ensure that our students do not rely on
AI-provided shortcuts that help them produce easy answers but stunt
intellectual growth. This requires rethinking the technology we allow in our
classrooms, the tasks we assign our students, and the way we assess our students'
performance.
This requires developing AI-resilient pedagogy, by which we
mean modes of classroom interaction and performance evaluation that reward
students' effortful and sustained engagement with the material, and discourage
the offloading of work to AI tools. AI-resilient pedagogy does not mean trying
to prevent all student use of AI. We do not want to deter uses of AI that can
increase students' effort and engagement, such as asking AI to clarify
background concepts while reading before class or asking AI to generate
practice problems while studying.
Second, AI may transform the legal profession, but many
aspects of legal practice are likely to remain the domain of humans, not merely
because humans are good at them, but because clients, employers, judges, and
society will want humans to perform them. Among others, these aspects of legal
practice are likely to include oral advocacy, strategic judgment, critical
thinking, and developing and maintaining relationships with clients and
stakeholders. To be sure, there are ways in which AI can assist humans with
these tasks. But legal education should renew its focus on training students
for the aspects of legal practice for which humans are likely to remain
essential.
Third, AI is already a pervasive part of legal practice and
will become more so. It is simply unrealistic to think that students and
lawyers will not use AI. But legal technology is changing rapidly, and there is
no guarantee that the specific AI tools or techniques that are ascendant today
will be useful when current students enter practice. Thus, AI skills training
requires more than producing students who can use the tools that are currently
part of legal practice. Law schools must give students the analytical skills
and theoretical toolkit to adapt as technologies change. This is how we will
ensure that our students learn how to use AI responsibly, effectively, and
ethically.
We believe that these three components of our strategic
vision are consistent with the Law School's longstanding commitment to rigorous
legal training and with emerging scholarship on the role of AI in education.
They are also consistent with the University of Chicago's broader goal of
ensuring that we teach our students to think 1vith, without, and about AI.
Putting the Vision into Practice
The Law School is implementing this vision through policies
that apply to the major elements of the law school curriculum: required 1L core
courses, 1L legal research and writing, elective courses, upper level writing
requirements, and clinical education. We outline these policies below.
Required 1L Core Courses. The 1L year is a crucial,
formative period for law students. It lays the foundation for the development
of critical thinking, legal writing skills, and strategic judgment throughout
law school and in professional life. During the 1L year, the value of effortful
struggle, even with concepts that are second nature to experienced lawyers, is
paramount. Student expertise at judging the quality of AI output is at its
nadir. The need for faculty to work together to create a consistent, AI-resilient
approach to pedagogy is especially acute in this setting. For this reason, the
Law School is adopting rules that set consistent norms for AI-resilient
teaching and assessment across all 1L sections in all 1L core courses (Civil
Procedure, Torts, Elements of the Law, Contracts, Property, Criminal Law,
Constitutional Law, Statutory Interpretation, and Transactional Lawyering).
We will be piloting a coordinated approach to classroom and
examination policies for the core 1L curriculum during the 2026-2027 academic
year. Across all 1L sections, we will prohibit the use of electronic devices
such as laptops, tablets, and phones in the classroom. There will be some
limited exceptions to this policy. For instance, professors can designate
classroom "scribes" who can use electronic devices to take notes for
the class, professors can authorize electronic device use for specific
tech-enabled activities (such as interactive in-class polling), and we will
ensure that disabilities are accommodated in conformity with applicable law, as
appropriate for the program of study.
Additionally, examinations will be
in-class without access to the internet, electronic files, or apps. And most of
all, we will continue our longstanding tradition of emphasizing the Socratic
Method as part of these courses. This coordinated approach reflects our
experience, and an emerging scholarly consensus, that active, in-person
engagement is conducive to learning. Reliance on devices to take notes or
assist with answering questions tends to inhibit reflection and reasoning.
1L Legal Research and Writing. We are taking a different
approach to 1L Legal Research and Writing (LRW). Many (if not most) students
will spend their 1L summers in professional environments where they will be
expected to use AI tools for research and writing tasks. Thus, the LRW
curriculum must also include instruction in the responsible, effective, and
ethical use of AI. At the same time, even AI skills training must itself be
AI-resilient. By the end of their 1L year, our students should have the ability
to review, assess, and improve the output of AI tools. Developing these skills
requires human interaction as much as it requires AI tools. Hands-on work with
AI tools in classroom settings and individualized feedback on writing must be
components of instruction on the use of AI in legal research and writing.
We will thus be piloting a new structure to the LRW
curriculum during the 2026-2027 academic year. Our approach will treat writing
without AI as the foundation and will layer writing with AI onto it. Throughout
the year, students will write without AI, while also using AI for research,
revision, iterating on drafts, and preparation for oral argument. Students and
their instructors will review together both their writing and their use of AI. In this way, students
will develop their own writing skills independent of generative AI tools while
also developing their ability to supervise AI and critique its output.
Elective Courses. As students progress from their
foundational training in required 1L classes to elective courses, the need for
coordination across sections abates, and the benefits of heterogeneity
increase. Thus, in the upper-level curriculum and the elective courses that 1Ls
take in the Spring, the goal of our AI policies shifts to providing guidance
and fostering experimentation. For these courses, the use of the Socratic
Method, no-device policies, and in-class, no-access exams will remain, but as default
rules rather than required policies.[1]
In all elective courses, we will encourage instructors to
experiment with pedagogy. Some methods of teaching and evaluation have enhanced
value as AI-resilient methods. These include modes of formative assessment such
as midterms, group projects, oral presentations, and peer-to-peer feedback. At
the same time, AI itself creates opportunities for new forms of teaching and
assessment. Our faculty have already begun experimenting with tools such as
custom chatbots that serve as study aids, AI-generated practice problems, and
the like. None of these particular modes of teaching and evaluation is
required, but we will support experimentation with modes such as these.
Finally, as students advance in their legal training, the
need for classes that explore responsible, effective, and ethical use of AI
grows. To this end, we have already added a number of courses that explicitly
focus on the use of AI (and even the creation of AI tools for legal work).
These courses are all offered as electives, so that students can select how
many AI-focused classes, and which of these classes, they wish to take. We plan
to continue to grow our upper-level offerings on AI.
Upper-Level Writing Requirements. Writing is crucial to
lawyering. Not only do most lawyers do a considerable amount of writing, but
the practice of writing cultivates the practice of deep, sustained, and
critical thought. Yet the primary modes of writing in the upper-level
curriculum-research papers and reaction papers-are under stress in a world in
which AI can produce plausible and substantial academic papers without the kind
of human input that paper-writing is intended to involve.
This is a particularly difficult challenge. Some responses,
such as requiring writing to take place in supervised, in-class settings,
address the need to cultivate practice while ensuring original human effort.
Yet such requirements lose an important aspect of the exercise of writing,
which is sustained and independent effort across hours, days, and weeks to
create a significant piece of work. This is a valuable formative exercise for
thinkers and lawyers, and we cannot wholly abandon it in favor of writing
methods that are easier to administer in AI-resilient ways.
Thus, we are developing an approach that introduces elements
of AI-resilient design while sustaining the project of training students to
undertake ambitious and independent writing projects. The rule based element
is a change to our "SRP" (substantial research paper) requirements,
which will take effect beginning with this year's class of rising 2Ls. Writing
an SRP is a requirement for completion of a JD degree, and the criteria for an
SRP already include (roughly) substantial length, independent research,
original ideas, incorporation of feedback from faculty, and iteration across
drafts. These requirements incorporate elements of serious academic and legal
writing. We will be adding one additional requirement, which is that all
students will be required to engage in an oral discussion of their SRP with
their supervising professor, in an in-person setting. This discussion will
occur after a complete draft (or final version) of the paper has been submitted
to the professor. The discussion could take place one-on-one, or as a class
presentation in the style of an academic workshop. Either way, the oral
exchange will involve the student answering questions that probe the reasoning
of the paper and the implications of its arguments.
The motivation for this new requirement is twofold. First,
this requirement makes the SRP more AI resilient by providing a test of a
student's thinking about what they have written in a setting where they cannot
lean on technology. It does so without sacrificing any of the unsupervised,
independent effort that must be a part of serious, sustained writing.
Second, this requirement imparts valuable skill-building for
both legal practice and academic life that is justified on its own merits,
without regard to AI. We are training students for a profession where they will
be called upon to explain and defend their ideas in person and in real time,
whether in the courtroom, during negotiations, when counseling clients, or when
working in collaboration with other lawyers. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of
intellectual life at the University of Chicago Law School is our robust
workshop culture, in which faculty regularly present their own research paper
drafts and address questions, suggestions, and criticisms from colleagues. An
oral discussion component to the SRP is a way to formalize a piece of that
workshop culture for all students.
Experimentation is the other element of our approach to
upper-level writing assignments. For all upper-level writing, we encourage
faculty to experiment with different modes of structuring writing assignments
in AI-resilient ways. Some examples could include:
• In-class student workshops of their papers;
• Writing reaction papers or portions of longer papers in
supervised, in-class settings;
• Group presentations or panel discussions by students with
related reaction paper topics;
• Students, individually or in groups, leading portions of
class discussion relevant to their reaction paper topics; and
• One-on-one discussion of a research paper with the
professor outside of class.
Many other possibilities exist, of course, and the point of
experimentation is to find the options that best ensure our students learn
writing and critical thinking skills.
Clinical Education. The role that clinical education plays
in preparing students for practice will be even more important in the AI era.
Client needs and expectations will create pressure for graduates to be able to
immediately use AI responsibly, effectively, and ethically. As a practical
matter, this means that for many graduates, law school clinics are the best
opportunity to receive close and careful supervision of their use of AI tools.
Further, clinical work often goes to the heart of what is
essentially human about lawyering: advocating to judges, juries, and policy
makers; understanding and being present to clients; strategizing about both the
doctrinal and the practical aspects of a case; and developing rapport with
counterparties and adversaries. These are all skills that our students learn
from our clinical faculty. Thus, clinics are a crucial site for learning 1vith,
without, and about AI.
To these ends, we have been obtaining access to AI tools for
our clinics. These include general purpose legal AI tools and tools that are
specifically designed for transactional work, immigration work, and litigation
discovery. We are also in the process of procuring additional tools. Further,
the clinics are each developing their own policies, tailored to their practice
areas, for appropriate use of AI and to safeguard against AI-created errors in
court filings and other work product. As these tools and policies are
implemented, the goal is to ensure that all students in clinics are working
both with AI and without AI for real clients in real practice settings.
Final Thoughts
Beyond these changes to our curriculum, three additional
principles will inform our thinking.
First, we will strive to ensure that our AI policies are
transparent, explicit, and explained. To that end, each instructor must state
their AI policy explicitly in the course syllabus and describe the policy in
class. And, as we confront new circumstances that require changes to our
policies, we will communicate those clearly to our students.
Second, we will try to stay up to date on new AI tools and
the best practices for how to use them. We have already been working with
alumni and other employers to understand how legal practice is incorporating
AI, and we have been partnering with technology firms to secure access for our
students, faculty, and staff to the AI tools that leading firms are using. We
have also been having regular conversations among our faculty to share
information about the use of AL We are committed to continuing to do what we
can to stay current in this time of rapid change.
Finally, we will regularly reconsider these policies with
ongoing input from our faculty, students, and alumni. We recognize that no
statement of an AI strategy or vision can be final. Technology is changing too
fast. Thus, all the changes we are currently making will be subject to review,
reconsideration, and revision as we learn more and as both technology and the
practice of law evolve.
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[1] We will continue to offer courses that are cross-listed
with other units, and students will still be allowed to enroll in courses
offered by other units. Depending on the rules of the other units, these
courses may have different policies than the electives offered solely within
the Law School. \Ve will work with instructors and other units to navigate any
conflicts that may arise in the policies of different units.
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Source: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/ai-strategy-statement.
