00:00Last week, the University of Chicago Law School announced that it would be banning laptops, tablets, and iPhones, other smartphones,
00:06in an attempt to limit the use of AI tools in the classroom.
00:09The school states that the decision was designed to ensure that students learn how to think critically, solve legal problems
00:15with sound professional judgment.
00:17This comes at a time where cheating is being investigated at several schools and universities across the country.
00:22Students are coming in with near-perfect scores on exams that traditionally brought in very different results.
00:28Joining us now is the dean of the law school at the University of Chicago, Adam Sheldon.
00:31Adam, thank you for making time.
00:33What prompted this, and how big of a problem is this kind of AI crutch or even flat-out cheating
00:39for students now?
00:42So I am unaware of any of the AI cheating scandals happening at our law school.
00:49I haven't heard of any, and I haven't seen any, although I've heard some of the news stories that you're
00:53probably referring to that have been taking place at colleges across the country.
00:57Our concern is a little different than that, which is the newest frontier models like Fable are just absolutely fantastic.
01:06And it's not to say there's never hallucinations or there's never mistakes, but these are models that now can get
01:13near-perfect scores on the bar exam or on law school finals or on other tests and legal benchmarking tools.
01:20So the question as educators that we have to be asking ourselves is, the students that we're admitting today are
01:26going to be graduating in three years in a world in which AI models can answer standard legal questions extremely
01:32well.
01:33And what then is the value that human lawyers are going to have beyond what the AI is able to
01:38do?
01:39And so what we're most focused on is ensuring that our students have the skills to be the best possible
01:45lawyers while graduating into that market.
01:48So let's look at this in two ways.
01:49I guess there's kind of use of technology in the classroom, and then there's the use of AI for the
01:55kind of work that your graduates are going to be doing, yes, in three years' time and beyond that.
01:59Maybe I can start there and just ask you how transformative AI has been so far in the profession and
02:06sort of how it's altering the prospects, yes, for jobs that your graduates could get,
02:11but also just the kind of need that firms are going to have for graduates of a law school like
02:14the University of Chicago's to do legal work going forward.
02:17Sure.
02:18So we've spent a lot of time over the last year working with our alumni and top law firms to
02:25try to understand what they're already seeing and what they're already doing.
02:27And the legal profession is already changing quite dramatically.
02:32There's both standard AI tools like ChatGPT or Cloud, but a whole range of models that are designed specifically for
02:41legal tasks like Harvey or Lagora and a range of other companies that are competing in this space.
02:48And at law firms, the pressure is real from clients to try to find ways to use these tools to
02:54be more efficient.
02:56And many of the tasks that first, second, third-year associates, new lawyers would do are exactly the kinds of
03:03things that AI models are extremely good at.
03:06So, for instance, go through a whole set of depositions for a trial and try to identify all of the
03:16places where a particular topic was covered.
03:19AI can do that in seconds.
03:20Or go through past contracts and find similar contract language that had been used in other deals and see how
03:29it compares to the contract that you're working today.
03:32Those sorts of things, companies can take their database to pass contracts, pass briefs, pass memos, and work with it
03:40pretty efficiently with AI.
03:42So, this is already happening.
03:45And 201, the law firms that we talk to, are just trying to do more to accelerate that process.
03:51It's a little bit similar to our business because tasks like that, they are what you get when you go
03:56in the door.
03:56And for news, when we were starting out as an intern, there was no software that could transcribe tapes for
04:03you.
04:03So, yes, you had to have a bunch of people in there to type out these tapes.
04:06And it's annoying and it takes forever.
04:08But you also learn so much by listening to these really experienced colleagues do interviews over and over again.
04:14You do absorb that.
04:15And I imagine it's the same thing when you're asked to, like, go through case law or go through contracts.
04:19Like, there is a learning process that you're getting there.
04:22So, how do you as a law school compensate for that if that's not something they're going to do when
04:26they step into their first law school job?
04:28And how are you going to try to enforce this ban on technology in the classroom?
04:33Yeah, so I should be clear.
04:34So, we released a comprehensive AI strategy of which the goal is to make sure that the students learn to
04:41think without machines and with machines.
04:43And one piece of that was to limit the use of technology in certain classrooms, mostly the first year or
04:49class classrooms.
04:52So, that's part of what the policy is doing.
04:54But then it's also outlining all of the ways that we're going to integrate AI even further into what we're
05:01already doing.
05:01So, for instance, reworking our first-year legal research and writing curriculum, which every law student in our law school
05:08and other law schools in their first year learns how to write legal briefs, legal materials.
05:16And in that class, we're directly integrating more AI into the curriculum.
05:20Or our clinics, which is where the students in their second and third year work on real cases for real
05:26clients under the supervision of clinical professors.
05:30The clinics had already been using AI in many of their cases and their matters.
05:35But I think they're leading the charge thinking, how can we do more to ensure that the students at our
05:42law school are using the same tools that they'll be using when they go out to practice so that they're
05:46getting that experience early?
05:48But at core across all these ideas, I think our philosophy is that we have to think about what's the
05:56essentially human skills that the students are going to use?
06:00And so, for instance, it's not just being able to answer a final exam question at the end of the
06:09class.
06:10It's being able to sit, listen, and have a conversation with someone and think quickly.
06:14That skill is going to be valuable if you're a law firm associate talking to a law firm partner, a
06:19law firm partner talking to a client, a lawyer talking to a judge, a law school dean talking to a
06:25journalist.
06:26Whatever it is, I think that that skill is not going out of fashion.
06:29And refocusing on the classroom away from just like typing as fast as you can, sitting and listening and trying
06:36to respond more, I think it's going to help teach those sorts of skills.
06:39Very quickly here, we have about 30, 45 seconds.
06:42Are we entering a world in which there are going to be fewer lawyers as a result of this?
06:45How do you think about just the need for lawyers going forward as a result of the advent of AI?
06:50So I think that AI is going to decrease the costs of many legal services.
06:55And typically what we've seen is when the cost for something goes down, demand goes up.
06:59So I think it's going to change the kinds of legal work that people do.
07:02But I'm not convinced that there will necessarily be fewer lawyers.
07:05So I think it's going to be fewer lawyers.
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