Are we the paranoid androids of legal education? Is our fear of AI casting such a negative shadow that we are more skeptical of our students’ abilities? Could they (our students) really have made this much improvement to their writing in a short period of time? Are we supporting and fueling bias with this skepticism? Again, are we paranoid androids?
I don’t have the answers, but I want to learn more so do as the doers do… ask.
I sat down with an honest and highly regarded law student (that is not currently in my class) and asked, “How are you and other law students actually using AI?” I made it clear that I earnestly wanted to know… no repercussions besides me writing their honest (and anonymous) response into this week’s piece.
I am a firm believer that the best way forward is to learn about AI and incorporate AI into legal education. Resistance is futile.
So here was my student’s unfiltered response in order of most often observed AI use to less frequent AI uses. I understand this is only one student’s observations and one experience does not speak for all, but their responses provide us with fuel for thought:
1. Case Briefing: inputting the case citation and requesting that AI generate a case brief to replace the reading preparation or to check that their prepared case brief is correct.
2. Summarizing Readings: inputting a PDF scan of the assigned readings and prompting AI with key takeaways of the chapter preps in “notes” form.
3. A prompt to AI requesting a comparison to explain the difference between two or more laws that are similar subject matter but have key distinctions.
4. Not so much on in class writing assignments but increased use of AI on take home assignments/exams or legal skills long term assignments.
5. Uploading recordings and prompting AI to summarize the recording or search transcriptions.
6. Creating flashcards and practice questions using input class notes into AI.
7. AI research tools, for example Westlaw and Lexis, which is sometimes emphasized as a necessary skill at internships.
… so no, we’re not paranoid… but we need to accept the androids.
(Amy Vaughan-Thomas)
