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.
