The University of Chicago Law School today released an AI Strategy Statement reflecting a new vision for legal education in the age of artificial intelligence. The strategy statement, titled, “Rethinking Legal Education in the AI Era,” focuses on bolstering both essential legal skills, such as critical thinking, and practical AI skills, which the legal profession now demands.
This approach to AI, which goes into effect in the fall quarter, is part of the Law School’s ongoing efforts to thoughtfully integrate AI into its curriculum. It aligns with UChicago’s broader goal of ensuring 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. “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 curriculum changes the Law School has rolled out since 2024, including creating AI modules for 1Ls, integrating AI tools into the clinics, launching the innovative AI Lab, and providing a framework for when to use and not use AI in the legal research and writing program.
But a lot has changed in a very short period of time, said William Hubbard, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics and chair of the Law School’s AI Committee. The legal profession has already been transformed by AI and will continue to be, noted Hubbard. “We’re no longer talking future tense here.”
“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.”
Clinical Professor Mark Templeton
AI has also become much more powerful and accurate, Hubbard continued. “It’s no longer workable to have a policy built around what you can and can’t use AI for when we’re moving towards a world in which everything we do has AI built into it.”
Clinical Professor Mark Templeton, who has served on the AI Committee since its inception, emphasized that the new vision offers a uniquely UChicago way forward.
“This is really about how we maintain and carry out our core values in a changing technological world,” he explained. “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.”
Core Elements of the New AI Strategy
The Law School’s new vision takes a realistic and nuanced approach to AI that is guided by three overarching themes:
• Developing AI-resilient pedagogy and assessment;
• Elevating the “essential human” skills that distinguish excellent lawyers; and
• Teaching the responsible, effective, and ethical use of AI
The concept of “AI resilient” is important, noted Hubbard. “The goal is to steer students toward using AI in ways that promote learning rather than inhibit it.”
Removing AI from critical points in the learning process, such as when students are taking exams or learning foundational concepts in the classroom, is one major part of the new strategy. For example, the Law School will pilot the general prohibition of electronic devices from all core 1L classes, with some limited exceptions.
The relationship between AI and school is very different from the relationship between AI and work, Hubbard said. “The idea that AI creates shortcuts, saves time, and avoids effort; these are all things that could be very beneficial in the professional context where you want to maximize efficiency. But they are very, very damaging in the educational context, when the whole point is to do things the hard way—because that’s how you learn.”
The no-device rule is not completely new to the Law School. A number of faculty members over the years have instituted this practice in their classrooms and many—both faculty and students—have reported positive effects on the quality of discussions and learning when the environment is distraction-free, not just from AI but from technology in general.
Upper-level writing requirements for substantial research papers (SRPs) will also see a change under the new strategy. All students will be required to engage in an oral discussion on their SRP topic, whether as an in-class presentation or a one-on-one with their professor.
The goal is to ensure students are learning the important and foundational concepts of the law, learning to think for themselves, and learning to think rigorously and creatively, said Dean Chilton.
Other elements of the strategy embrace the use of technology. Students will have opportunities—and in fact, will be expected to—learn how to use AI effectively and ethically.
The Law School’s clinics play an important role in introducing students to ethical, real-world uses for AI in law. Many clinics—such as the Criminal Juvenile Justice Clinic, which uses JusticeText, and the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, which uses VisaLaw.AI—have already adopted AI tools specific to their practice areas. The Law School will continue to expand access to new AI tools so that students in clinics can continue to benefit from these unique hands-on training opportunities.
Templeton, who uses AI in some of his work with the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, said that AI tools can be very helpful, but it is not enough to obtain AI tools and just provide them to students. Collaboration and hands-on instruction are essential to making them effective, because “like a lot of tools, you have to really understand their capabilities and how to use them, especially by reviewing their output critically.” The new strategy recognizes that, he added.
Hubbard agreed that AI used well can be a boon to student learning in other settings, too. “If you want to use AI as a study partner, if you want to use AI to ingest your notes from class and then create questions to quiz you on the material, that’s great,” he said. “That’s not a shortcut. There are ways that using AI can strengthen the learning process and that’s what we’re trying to lean into.”
Professor Hubbard highlights five things that make UChicago Law’s AI strategy unique.
An Intentional, Iterative Process
Developing the new strategy statement was a highly collaborative process, with UChicago Law alumni playing a central role. The statement resulted from months of discussions and feedback from alumni, leading lawyers, and business and technology experts to understand the real changes AI is making in the way law is being practiced.
As part of this effort, the Law School created a new AI Advisory Council, comprised of 15 alumni at leading law firms and AI technology companies. It also sought input from focus groups with young associates, students, and UChicago leadership.
One recurring theme that emerged from these discussions came as a pleasant surprise to Hubbard. He had been concerned that different stakeholders might give conflicting advice, but this wasn’t the case. “They all said the same thing, which is you cannot let AI compromise the learning process that students go through in law school,” he said.
“The Law School continues to place rigorous analysis and the development of judgment at the heart of its curriculum, augmented but not replaced by artificial intelligence. This is exactly what success in the profession will require.”
Dave Gordon, ’98, partner at Sidley
Dave Gordon, ’98, a partner at Sidley, and one of the members of the AI Council, stressed this point.
“The Law School continues to place rigorous analysis and the development of judgment at the heart of its curriculum, augmented but not replaced by artificial intelligence,” Gordon said. “This is exactly what success in the profession will require.”
Chilton stressed that alumni partnerships are a vital resource to the Law School as it continues to assess and adapt its AI approach. Whether providing insights on new developments or helping the Law School gain access to new AI tools for students or visiting the Law School to give lunch talks, “the alumni community serves as our bridge to all the ways the practice of law is evolving,” he said.
“How AI will show up in practice will vary from firm to firm and practice area to practice area,” continued Chilton. “So even though we’re having a lot of conversations, there’s still more to know.”
A Commitment to Excellence and Innovation
The Law School’s AI Strategy Statement is a reflection of the Law School’s historical commitment to excellence and innovation. From maintaining a strict curve grading system as peer schools moved away from it to redesigning the 1L curriculum years ago to include transactional lawyering courses, this new strategy is yet another example of UChicago Law’s willingness to think outside the box.
“I think it’s extremely healthy to see this degree of dedication and experimentation in legal education,” said Chilton. “I’m excited to see all of the different ways our faculty will rethink how to teach seminars, how to run their clinics, and how to drive participation in lecture classes. The amount of pedagogical innovation that’s taking place in such a short period of time has the faculty—and myself—excited about this moment for legal education.”
Dean Adam Chilton discusses UChicago Law’s approach to AI.
For Hubbard, the technological innovations of AI and the Law School’s new strategy to address it inspire a different kind of feeling. They have forced him to contemplate what it means to be human. “I think it’s asking the law profession as a collective body to reflect on that question,” he said.
And what does it mean for lawyers to be human when a lot of what they do can now be done by machines?
The answer, Hubbard concluded, lies in the work itself.
A lot of legal work is not simply about getting something done, it’s about a human being getting something done, explained Hubbard. “I teach civil procedure, and we talk about the legal process through which an injured person seeks redress against another person. This isn’t an automated process; it is a process that must include each of them and treat each of them as a human being.”
He continued: “So, when we talk about elevating the essential human as one of the three core components of our vision, that’s very intentional. AI is an amazing tool, and we are embracing it. But our students are human beings, and the clients they are going to have are human beings.”
