The University of Chicago Law School's new curricular policy on the use of AI will limit the use of technology in its core first-year courses.gettyThe University of Chicago Law School has released a new policy for how it will educate law students in the age of artificial intelligence, and it’s sure to raise eyebrows.As part of its Rethinking Legal Education in the AI Era, the law school plans to pilot a prohibition against the use of electronic devices such as laptops, tablets, and phones in its core first-year courses.The plan, set to go into effect this fall, is the result of months of consultation with alumni, practicing attorneys, faculty, students and other stakeholders. Intended to bolster basic legal skills and build practical AI knowhow, the policy aims at helping law students learn to think “with, without, and about AI.”“The Law School prides itself on being uniquely focused on producing graduates who are prepared to be excellent lawyers,” said Dean Adam Chilton, in a news release. “We have always been willing to innovate with our curriculum to ensure that that’s always true. This moment is no different.”The strategy builds on curricular changes the law school has introduced in recent years, following OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022. Since then it has added AI modules for law students, integrated AI tools into practice clinics, started its own AI Lab, and begun training students about when to use and not use AI in legal research and writing. The new policy centers not so much on prohibiting all student use of AI, as it does on making sure “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.” MORE FOR YOUAs a result of this approach, the permitted use of AI will depend on the tasks and assignments in which students are engaged. They will be expected to learn to think like lawyers without AI in their core courses, but they will learn how to use AI in more advanced parts of the curriculum. Core Elements The new policy is guided by three themes: 1. Developing AI-resilient pedagogy and assessment; 2. Elevating essentially human skills; and 3. Teaching ethical and effective use of AI.Most of the specific curricular changes are organized under the AI-resilient pedagogy and assessment prong, which is meant to ensure “that students learn how to think critically and solve legal problems with sound professional judgment without excessively relying on AI in ways that undermine their development of rigorous thinking skills.” According to the second prong, “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.” Examples are oral advocacy, strategic judgment, critical thinking, and developing and maintaining relationships with clients and stakeholders. Finally, the law school wants to train students to use AI responsibly. That requires more than graduating students who can use the tools that are already being employed in legal practice. Students also need to develop the analytical skills for understanding the advantages and limitations of this rapidly changing technology. The Curricular ChangesThe change that’s sure to attract the most attention involves pilot-testing a ban on electronic devises in first-year courses, including Civil Procedure, Torts, Elements of the Law, Contracts, Property, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Statutory Interpretation, and Transactional Lawyering. In addition, examinations will be conducted in-class without access to the internet, electronic files, or apps. Limited exceptions to this policy will be permitted. Professors can designate student“scribes,” who can use electronic devices to take notes for the class, faculty can allow electronic devices for specific activities (such as interactive in-class polling), and students with disabilities will be accommodated. The policy allows use of AI in the law school’s legal research and writing program. Because many students will spend their summers working in environments where they’ll be expected to use AI tools for research, the 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.” The law school will treat writing without AI as the foundation skill and then layer — or add —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.”Another change involves UChicago’s requirement that its law students complete a substantial research paper for the JD degree. Next year, the school will add a requirement that all students must engage in an oral, in-person discussion of their SRP with their supervising professor, after a complete draft of the paper has been submitted.The school said the rationale for this requirement is twofold. First, it assesses students’ thinking about what they’ve written in a setting where they cannot lean on technology. Second, it trains them for a profession where they will need 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.” For electives and upper-level courses, the policy states that “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." It encourages faculty to deploy AI for new forms of teaching and assessment, such as using chatbots as study aids or for creating practice problems. The law school has also added several elective courses that focus on the use and creation of AI tools for legal work.Finally, the law school’s clinics will be used to refine and supervise student’s use of AI tools for clients in real practice settings, such as those designed for transactional work, immigration practice, and litigation discovery. The clinics are also developing policies for the appropriate use of AI and protection against AI-created errors in court filings and other work products. A Contrast With UC BerkeleyChicago’s approach is sure to draw comparisons with the University of California, Berkeley Law School, which recently adopted its own policy governing students’ use of AI. That rule, which goes into effect this summer, is more strict, forbidding students to use AI for most academic work submitted for credit.It reads: “The use of AI is prohibited for aid in conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit. AI use is prohibited for any use for any purpose in any exam situation. Students may not upload course materials—including assignments, readings, slides, class recordings, or other class content—into generative AI systems. AI can be used for research on papers ONLY for the limited purpose of identifying sources, such as cases, statutes, or secondary sources. Students are responsible for the accuracy of their research and all other aspects of their submitted work. Citations to sources that do not exist will raise a presumption of prohibited AI use.”An exception is carved out for those courses that “are designed intentionally to teach AI fluency” as well as for other courses where the instructor asks to be permitted to deviate from the default prohibition for pedagogical reasons. Otherwise, Berkeley’s policy rules out using AI to brainstorm a paper’s topic, organize its structure, or polish a first draft.Both schools are trying to a find the right balance between not allowing AI to compromise high-quality legal education and training students how to use AI effectively and ethically in a profession where its application is becoming commonplace. Similar debates are ongoing at other professional schools, graduate programs, and undergraduate colleges. As Clinical Professor Mark Templeton, who serves on the Chicago Law School’s AI Committee, said, "this is really about how we maintain and carry out our core values in a changing technological world. AI is part of our world whether we like it or not, and this new way forward honors all the best parts of a UChicago Law education: that includes rigorous intellectual inquiry, critical thinking, ethical reflection, effective communication, informed judgment, and empathy for the clients our students will serve in their future careers.”