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  wxw
  I think this plan is really quite well-balanced and sane. Also kudos to UChicago Law School for including an actual implementation plan here, not just vague thoughts.Some bits I found interesting:[For required courses in year 1] > Across all 1L sections, we will prohibit the use of electronic devices such as laptops, tablets, and phones in the classroom. > 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. [For Legal Research & Writing year 1] > 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. [Electives] > 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. > In all elective courses, we will encourage instructors to experiment with pedagogy. [Upper level 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.
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  kozzion
  As a CTO of an Ai first law firm I would like to add that most human lawyers are absolutely terrible. We review 100s of old contracts every week and most of them have 10-20 serious drafting errors on them. The most common ones are of the order of defining the same concept like 'a working day' in various conflicting ways without every specifying when which of the conflicting definitions should be used. Lawyers still have something to add to process but for every time they catch AI out on them, the machine is usually already 10-1 ahead.
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  agentprose
  I recent beat an actual lawyer as a pro se plaintiff in a civil suit. It was all codex and claude, using the cli agents to write the "import docx" scripts that wrote all the filings, and scripts to assemble exhibits. I don't know how long the bars will be able to hold onto their monopoly powers when confronted with LLMs that are measurably superior.
• Kaibeezy
  The posted article is about law school, but the comments are focusing on practice. These overlap but are not the same.“Lawyer” is one of many possible career paths. Law graduates are uniquely qualified as premium law-aware generalists. In my opinion, there is no better education to prepare for future business uncertainty.
• benj111
  Problem is. The law isn't actually what is written. Lawyers aren't truthful or honest. Being a lawyer is just getting a licence to lie in court, and for some reason the judge takes it seriously.Lawyers are going to use ai, because it's easy. The only time they won't is when the AI won't come up with a plausible enough excuse. The lawyer will always have a job, because a non lawyer using the same arguments will be ignored.So these are rules to maintain the appearance that the system has integrity.And that's the annoying thing. They know what integrity and justice and fairness look like, just as the rest of the justice system does, but they ignore it all.At this point, it would be preferable for both sides to put their argument to an AI and let the AI decide what is fair. Wouldn't be any worse than judges who were themselves lawyers looking after their own.Sorry for the rant, I've had experience of the 'justice' system.
• JSR_FDED
  I think more universities will follow. Every prof I speak to has noticed shorter attention spans, low effort LLM writing, and inability to assess competence.
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  keiferski
  It’s interesting to think that the “public speaking skills” aspect of some legal jobs will probably continue to be AI-proof for the indefinite future. No one is going to present ChatGPT on an iPad as their defense attorney.On the other hand, the paperwork-first side of law is probably in for a tough future. Especially if your clients are not big corporations or rich celebrities.In general I think my advice to young people is: focus on social skills, public speaking, etc. These are not going to be replaced by robots in your lifetime.
• shevy-java
  > our graduates will be expected to be prepared to use them in legal practice.But then why do I need a lawyer?I do watch Travis's videos. Ever since he integrated AI, the video quality dropped immensely and it became really stupid, compared to his older videos. AI degraded the quality and discussions he used to have with law enforcement too, it's quite sad actually.https://www.youtube.com/@Exchange_IDs/videos
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  AndrewKemendo
  This is exactly why all these people talking about a “bubble” I think are misguided.Are expectations way too high in the near term for tech companies and all of the crap that they’re talking? 100% totally agree. But this is “just another an AI cycle” and if you’re a practitioner it does look different than the previous ones.However this kind of statement was not released for crypto, or for the Internet. Those were massively impactful technologies.What you are actively seeing happening now are institutions saying “we have to change the way that we practice” “the way that we did business before is no longer as applicable as it’s going to be changing very rapidly in the future and we’re going to have to deal with that.”That is not coming from investors or technology companies. That is coming from people who are utilizing this stuff and being impacted by itSo it is absolutely the case that there’s going to be some kind of financial changes but just like every other AI cycle we are left with a aggressively more capable technology that is more pervasive.Everybody needs to be taking that seriously.
• nttylock
  [flagged]
• avaer
  This is a more reasoned take than most reactions to AI. But nobody wants to consider the possibility that maybe we won't actually need what was traditionally called lawyers in the mid/near term future; certainly before the new grad's careers are up.I would never expect Harvard Law school to admit this, their hands are tied by many interests, but IMO they still aren't being pragmatic enough to evolve.I would make the courses 50% AI based immediately, the other 50% being based on validating and applying the AI's work with traditional rigorous work. Anyone who rejects this should drop out, because they won't have a career anyway. And if Harvard Law disagrees then they can find out how meaningful their degrees are going to be in 10 years.