Category «Legal Profession»

The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn’t cheating – it’s the erosion of learning itself

Over the past eight years Nir Eisikovits and Jacob Burley have been studying the moral implications of pervasive engagement with AI as part of a joint research project between the Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. In a recent white paper, we argue that as AI systems become more autonomous, the ethical stakes of AI use in higher ed rise, as do its potential consequences.

Subjects: AI, Education, Ethics, KM

All In: Embedding AI in the Law School Classroom

What is the irreducibly human element in legal education when AI can pass the bar exam, generate effective lectures, and provide personalized learning and academic support? This article by law professor Gregory M. Duhl confronts that question head-on by documenting the planning and design of a comprehensive transformation of a required doctrinal law school course—first-year Contracts— with AI fully embedded throughout the course design. Instead of adding AI exercises to conventional pedagogy or creating a stand-alone AI course, this approach reimagines legal education for the AI era by integrating AI as a learning enhancer rather than a threat to be managed. The transformation serves Mitchell Hamline School of Law’s access-driven mission: AI helps create equity for diverse learners, prepares practice-ready professionals for legal practice transformed by AI, and shifts the institutional narrative from policing technology use to leveraging it pedagogically.

Subjects: AI, Education, KM, Legal Education, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Technology, LEXIS, Westlaw

Like Lawyers In Pompeii: Is Legal Ignoring The Coming AI Infrastructure Crisis? (Part III)

Before the volcano erupts, smart lawyers may want to think twice about investing too heavily in AI or thinking it’s a panacea for all problems – by Stephen Embry and Melissa Rogozinsk. All four parts of this series are available via links on each part of this series.

Subjects: AI, Information Management, KM, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Technology Trends

Like Lawyers In Pompeii: Is Legal Ignoring The Coming AI Financial Crisis? (Part IV)

It’s time for lawyers and legal professionals to follow the money to assess the risks of AI. By Stephen Embry and Melissa Rogozinski.

Subjects: AI, Energy, KM, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management, Technology Trends

Like Lawyers In Pompeii: Is Legal Ignoring The Coming AI Cost Crisis? (Part II)

Stephen Embry and Melissa Rogozinski challenge the assumption fueling the explosion of AI use in legal is that it will save gobs of time. These savings will inure to the benefit of lawyers and clients, will lead to fairer methods of billing like alternative fee structures, will get better results, improve access to justice, and lead to ‘world peace’. Well, maybe even the vendors would not go so far as to guarantee the last one. But vendors do seem to be guaranteeing everything but that. And pundits talk as if AI will transform legal from the ground up. Law firms are buying into the hype, investing in expensive systems that do things they barely understand. See also Part I of their article here.

Subjects: AI, Continuing Legal Education, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Education, KM, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Management

The Librarian as a Trusted (Human) Assistant

Jennifer Chapman concisely conveys the importance of identifying for patrons that AI’s confidence doesn’t equal competence. Chapman states that as law librarians we are naturally skeptical of certainty. The law teaches us to question everything, and library school teaches us how to verify everything. We, not generative AI, are the trusted human assistants that need to help our patrons effectively use technology tools.

Subjects: AI, Education, KM, Law Librarians, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Research Training, Search Strategies

Teaching Legal Research in the Generative AI Era: When Source Blindness and Source Erasure Collide (Part 2)

In Part 2 of her series on how Generative AI (GAI) has changed the dynamics of legal research, Tanya Thomas highlights how research used to encompass finding sources, evaluating them, synthesizing insights across multiple authorities, and reaching conclusions based on that synthesis. Now however, it means asking questions and accepting answers. Students have become consumers of information rather than investigators of it. They don’t develop the iterative thinking that characterizes skilled research—trying a search, evaluating results, refining the query, following unexpected leads, discovering connections, recognizing gaps, circling back to fill them. They simply ask and receive.

Subjects: AI, Communications, Education, Legal Education, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Technology

The Grief You Can’t Name – How Change and Transformation Influence You

When organizations ask people to change how they work, they’re not just asking them to learn new procedures. They’re asking them to grieve what made them valuable, release what gave them pride, and trust that something on the other side of that loss will be worth it. Kevin Novak describes how oganizations pour billions into change management while ignoring the psychological truth underneath: regardless of the situation, when confronted with organizational change, humans go through the same grief cycle first identified by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Her book, On Death and Dying, published in 1969, introduced the concept of the Five Stages of Grief. Those five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Her intent wasn’t an application to organizational change or transformation, or even a recognition of how we all go through stages when confronted with any personal or professional change. However, Novak states that ongoing research and his company’s study of the human factor, demonstrate her model’s applicability. Understanding these stages can help inform individuals facing change as much as for how leaders approach transformation.

Subjects: Communication Skills, Communications, Education, Ethics, Leadership, Libraries & Librarians, Management

The Law Firm Pyramid Rollover

Heather Suttie is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on legal market strategy and management of legal services firms. In this article she addresses how artificial intelligence, pricing, and transience of the legal service sector’s workforce will cause the traditional law firm pyramid structure to rollover like an upending iceberg. The result? By 2030, global legal services will operate much differently than they do now.

Subjects: AI, Continuing Legal Education, Economy, Financial System, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management

The Imminent AI Bubble Crash (and Why It Won’t Matter in the Long Run)

This article examines why today’s AI boom resembles the dot-com bubble—soaring valuations, unprofitable companies, copy-cat entrants, and heavy speculation driven in part by infrastructure providers themselves. Drawing parallels from 1999 to now, Jerry Lawson argues that although an AI correction is inevitable, it won’t derail the long-term transformation AI will bring. The bubble will burst—but the technology will endure, and the real winners will emerge in the next wave.

Subjects: AI, Economy, Financial System, KM, Legal Profession, Legal Technology