AI is preparing the next generation of lawyers

Early in 2023, an eon ago in the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), lawyers were decidedly skeptical about its usefulness for the profession.

Initial experiences with popular AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants revealed shortcomings, including issues of privacy and accuracy. Lawyers were fined and reprimanded for filing inaccurate briefs based on generative AI (GenAI) searches. None of this inspired confidence in the future of AI at US law schools and firms.

Fast forward to the present and much has changed. The concept that GenAI is useful not only in practicing but also teaching law is catching on rapidly, as more people understand its benefits. Over the next five years, 90 percent of legal executives said they expect their investment in GenAI technologies to increase.

From cutting through stacks of legal documents to drafting entire briefs, GenAI’s potential to transform the legal industry is akin to the changes that search engines and the internet once brought, generating efficiencies and insights that make lawyers more productive.

As with any emerging technology, approaches to adoption are varied and evolving. But law schools and firms across the United States are beginning to embrace it for training the next generation.

From Harvard to Vanderbilt and Notre Dame, law schools are teaching classes on AI ethics and policies, how to prompt GenAI legal search engines and much more.

The same is happening at law firms, where AI has become part of the standard fare for trainees seemingly overnight.

The growth of AI in legal education and training is being driven to a large extent by experts such as the global information and analytics company LexisNexis Legal & Professional. The company's access to vast, verified datasets allows it to train specialist AI products that can be relied on for accuracy and safety.

“We went from 0-60 in one second. It went from being on our radar to something we spent all our time on."

Emily Florio, director of knowledge research and resources at DLA Piper LLP,
one of the top three US law firms.

AI gains ground

Throughout the country, leading law schools are dedicating more resources for legal professionals to understand AI, both its opportunities and its risks. Last year, Harvard Law School launched the Initiative on Artificial Intelligence and the Law and Vanderbilt Law School announced its AI Legal Lab.

UC Berkeley, known for its leadership in law and technology, is the first university to introduce a Master of Laws degree with a focus on AI, which is to begin in the summer of 2025.

The program aims to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technologies and will include topics such as efforts to regulate AI, including the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.

“Students will gain fluency with AI technologies and explore the ways in which law and policy are being developed and applied in order to minimize the harms and maximize the benefits offered by AI,” says Colleen V. Chien – one of the top cyber-law scholars in the US and a member of the advisory committee that designed the course curriculum.

While there are differences within the legal education community on how best to incorporate GenAI, professors, researchers and law students increasingly see it as a net gain when handled correctly.

“There’s still a lot of debate, but there’s an understanding that GenAI is here to stay. When used appropriately, it can help you be a more effective attorney,” says Kristie Chamorro, instructional and educational technology librarian at Berkeley Law Library.

AI was the key topic at the annual conference of the American Association of Law Libraries in Chicago, with more than a dozen dedicated events such as how to “Implement, Plan and Fund Your GenAI Toolkit” and “Are Students Ready for AI Assistance?”

One of the reasons for this growing acceptance is improvements in high-profile models: GPT-4 made headlines last year for passing the Uniform Bar Examination. More importantly, new, more specialized products have come to market.

LexisNexis rolled out Lexis+ AI, its generative AI legal solution, in the fall of 2023 to US law schools. Lexis+ AI has been specifically created, developed and trained for use in the practice of law, and is the first legal GenAI solution available to 100 percent of ABA-accredited law schools, students and faculty. And unlike most GenAI products that feed on the internet and might therefore replicate inaccurate information, Lexis+ AI draws solely on a closed but rich database of verified original sources, meaning users know that they can trust its results.

Trusted technology

Combining extractive and generative AI functions, Lexis+ AI has several features: the ability to draft briefs, contract clauses or client communications; an intelligent but conversational search tool; accurate summaries of lengthy documents; and analyses that extract and summarize key insights from documents.

It uses a library of billions of documents, from original court rulings to municipal, state and federal legislation. In fact, its AI-generated content cites every original source and makes them readily accessible.

At the beginning of the fall 2024 semester, nearly one-in-three law schools accredited by the American Bar Association had some form of mandatory Lexis+ AI training integrated into their curriculum, according to LexisNexis data.

“Much of the doubt about AI often comes from what people have been reading in the media or heard from colleagues, not from a first-hand impression. Once they see Lexis+ AI is accurate, safe and easy to use, many of their fears disappear.”
Kristine Kober, regional sales manager at LexisNexis Legal & Professional

Meet Protégé, your personalized legal AI assistant:

See Lexis+ AI in use:

Evolving approaches

The degree to which law schools and firms are adopting AI varies widely. As elsewhere, the decision to use AI at Notre Dame is up to each individual professor. But the entire research staff at its Kresge Law Library teaches artificial intelligence, including how to use Lexis+ AI, to its 180 first-year students, as well as its second- and third-year students.

“It’s firmly implanted in our legal research curriculum. We’ve embraced it because we want our people to be competitive,” says Christopher O’Byrne, research librarian at the University of Notre Dame, who begins the first day of his two introductory legal research classes with a section on AI and includes follow up examples in every class. He has been impressed by what Lexis+ AI can do. “It does the job in five minutes instead of two hours and produces accurate results.”

Testing Lexis+ AI with his students, O’Byrne asked it several sample exam questions. One was whether you can keep a bald eagle feather if you find it and another was whether the tenant or the landlord is responsible if the tenant’s dog bites someone in the state of Washington. In both cases, the answers (only if you’re a member of a recognized Native American tribe and have the proper permit; the tenant) were ‘spot on,’ even if relevant cases and laws were not always ordered by importance, O’Byrne said.

The Berkeley Law Library has been working to support faculty, students and staff as GenAI in legal practice and education develops. In summer 2023, Chamorro participated in an introductory GenAI workshop for faculty and followed up with an informative webpage on AI. Then in the spring of 2024, she ran a workshop series for students and local alumni of Berkeley Law’s Master of Laws program. This was followed by a four-part workshop in the summer for students in Berkeley’s executive track LL.M. program, where global legal professionals visit Berkeley to undertake an intensive in-residence course of study.

“There’s been a more cautious approach with first-year students. A lot of folks, myself included, believe you need to understand the traditional methods before jumping into AI,” says Chamorro. “It’s going to have a place in the legal research puzzle to make research more efficient, but the question is how to bridge these new generative AI capacities with traditional research methods. We’re all still figuring that out.”

At DLA Piper, all new fall associates may opt in to Lexis+ AI training and access, after lawyers already using the tool at the firm were impressed with its results and many summer associates showed keen interest.

“Many of our current lawyers see the value and therefore want the new associates to learn about it as soon as they start at the firm,” says Florio.

Other law firms have had similar experiences. In a survey of commercial preview customers, 91 percent agreed that Lexis+ AI is easy to use and 89 percent estimated they will save up to 11 hours per week on summarizing case law.

In addition, says Florio, lawyers in corporate and finance will receive special training in Intelligize AI, a LexisNexis tool that enhances viewing and analysis of filings with the SEC and its Canadian counterpart, Sedar.

Debunking the replacement myth

Everyone using AI for legal training agrees that students must learn its limitations as well as advantages and the paramount importance of following guidelines and rules: ethical, legal and corporate.

For one, AI-driven legal assistants like Lexis+ AI aren’t meant to replace lawyers but aid them. It’s a bit like having autopilot on a commercial aircraft or an advanced KitchenAid in a good restaurant. The chef still draws up the menu, monitors preparations and tastes the dishes before they go to the table.

So too must lawyers prepare their search properly with effective prompting and may have to edit, reorganize or prioritize the output they obtain.

“You don’t stop using your knowledge and expertise as a lawyer or researcher just because you have AI,” says DLA Piper’s Florio. “It’s not either or, they complement each other.”

Indeed, as the “lawyer versus machine” myth is being debunked and awareness grows of AI’s potential to transform areas of law, a catchphrase is gradually taking hold: “AI won’t replace lawyers, but lawyers who use AI will outperform those who don’t.”

The curriculum at DLA Piper will include teaching associates their responsibilities, with regard to ethical standards, house regulations, the American Bar Association (ABA) or the state bars and clients.

More than 40 states have adopted Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which says that “to maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”

Some basic tenets of legal ethics and accountability are broadly accepted:

Lawyers must oversee any work done by AI: Work products and conclusions reached by AI cannot replace human judgment and must be reviewed by lawyers for completeness and accuracy.
Client confidentiality must be protected: Lawyers must understand whether the AI tool retains documents and for how long, what encryption technology it has and who can view the information.
Lawyers have a duty to communicate with the client regarding the use of AI: A client must be told and allowed to object if an AI tool is writing legal documents.

Source: AI and Legal Ethics: What Lawyers Need to Know (Lexis Practical Guidance)

A future-proofed generation

Few in the field doubt that AI will become ever-more prevalent in training lawyers.

At DLA Piper, Lexis+ AI will become the “primary GenAI legal aide platform” that will be given to summer associates, says Florio. “It’ll become pivotal in next summer’s associates program.”

AI will also change the way classes are taught. Notre Dame’s O’Byrne says that in the future, he will restructure his curriculum based on Lexis+ AI.

“Lexis+ AI won’t be an addendum, it’ll be the starting point. If students can answer my questions faster with the help of GenAI, well then I can ask them to do more, to add value. I can raise the bar,” he says.

The hope is that with training on the correct uses of GenAI, the next generation of lawyers will emerge practice-ready, competitive and future-proofed for the changes that technology is likely to bring in the years to come.