The Future of Law Education How AI is Transforming Law Schools

About ten years ago, I was teaching courses in law practice management and technology at several law schools. I even wrote a law review article with Stephanie Kimbro on the necessity of teaching law practice management and technologies that power a law firm's practice. This era was before the infusion of major venture capital into many law firm technology startups and the new array of technology services now provided to law firms in many practice areas.

At an earlier time, when the Internet was ascending, I was teaching a course in law and technology with an emphasis on the impact of the Internet on the delivery of legal services. I remember that another faculty member told me that the Internet was just a fad and would have no impact on the legal profession. This turned out to be good advice, as I resigned from my position at the law school and proceeded to found several online legal service companies that have generated millions of dollars in revenue for me for the last twenty-five years.

Recently, I watched a podcast with Richard Susskind, who was asked what he thought of the idea that some law schools are considering prohibiting the use of ChatGPT and other large language models to do their work. He said this would be a bad idea and that law schools should embrace the use of AI in their courses and teach law students how to use AI technologies proactively. This view reminded me of the skepticism that I experienced more than 25 years ago when I first started teaching these subjects in law schools.

So I became curious about which law schools were incorporating AI technologies in their curriculum. Rather than look at every law school catalog to figure out what courses were offered, I just asked Claude.

Claude responded below in about ten seconds:

1.     Schools with Mandatory AI Requirements for All Students

At least eight law schools now require incoming students — especially 1Ls — to undergo AI training, either during orientation, in legal research and writing classes, or via mandatory standalone courses. These include Fordham University, Arizona State University, Stetson University, Suffolk University, Washington University in St. Louis, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of San Francisco.

Mississippi College School of Law became the first law school in the Southeast to require a formal AI certification, launching it in Spring 2026 in collaboration with Wickard.ai.

Quinnipiac University introduced a required one-credit AI course for first-year students, responding to feedback from law firms that new hires are increasingly expected to be AI-fluent.

2.     Top Schools with Robust AI Curricula

Stanford Law School is integrating AI across classroom offerings, library-run training modules, makerspaces for building AI agents, and clinical programs, while emphasizing ethical responsibilities.

University of Chicago Law School launched an AI Lab in fall 2025 where students build AI tools rather than just learn to use them. The school also retooled its first-year writing program with a phased approach — no AI in fall, then guided AI use in winter.

Washington University (WashU) Law embedded generative AI instruction into its first-year Legal Research curriculum starting with the Class of 2025, giving students hands-on training in legal-specific AI platforms, including how to detect hallucinated content.

Suffolk University Law School partnered with Hotshot to make a generative AI learning track mandatory for all 1Ls beginning in fall 2025 — the first school in the nation to mandate the Hotshot learning track — covering practical AI use and its limitations.

3.     Executive/Certificate Programs at Elite Schools

Harvard Law School offers an executive education program called "AI and the Law: Navigating the New Legal Landscape," where participants use AI tools throughout the course with faculty and AI researcher guidance.

Penn Carey Law (University of Pennsylvania) offers an executive education program covering AI's impact on e-discovery, document management, automation, and the future of legal practice, with CLE credits available.

UC Berkeley School of Law launched an online course in early 2025 focused on generative AI in law for all legal professionals, covering prompt engineering, drafting with AI, and managing hallucination risks.

Drake University Law School launched a new AI Law Certificate Program for J.D. students, designed for completion in the second and third years with an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach.

The pace of change is rapid — what was an elective two years ago is fast becoming a graduation requirement across the country. It looks like top schools, generally, are ahead of lower-ranked schools, with some exceptions.

The pace of change is rapid — what was an elective two years ago is fast becoming a graduation requirement across the country. It looks like top schools, generally, are ahead of lower-ranked schools, with some exceptions.