Merritt: GPT-4 On Legal Education And Lawyer Licensing

Deborah J. Merritt (Ohio State; Google Scholar), GPT-4 on Legal Education and Licensing:

ChatGPT has written passable law school essays, and GPT-4 has aced the bar exam. But what if, instead of asking AI to take our tests, we asked it about the future of legal education and licensing?

My colleague Andrea Sinner, who served as the Executive Director of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Education, decided to find out. While preparing for a class she co-teaches with Trish White (Professor and Dean Emerita at the University of Miami School of Law, and Chair of the ABA Commission) Andrea asked GPT-4: “What principles would we apply to the seemingly intractable problem of how to better align legal education and licensure in the United States to the modern needs for, and requirements of, legal service delivery?” That question is similar to the one that the ABA Commission asked its stakeholders.

Here is what GPT-4 had to say:

[I]t would be useful exercise for legal educators and bar examiners to consider this list. How well does your curriculum or licensing system accord with these principles?

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• A Human Being Wrote This Law Review Article: GPT-3 And The Practice Of Law (May 11, 2022)
• The Implications Of OpenAI’s Assistant For Legal Services And Society (Dec. 7, 2022)
• ChatGPT And Law School Exams (Dec. 29, 2022)
• GPT Will Soon Be Able To Pass The Multistate Bar Exam (Jan. 5, 2023)
• Using ChatGPT To Write Law School Exams, Bar Exams, And Strategic Plans (Jan. 11, 2023)
• ChatGPT Gets B|B- Grade On Wharton MBA Exam (Jan. 24, 2023)
• ChatGPT Gets C+ Grade On Four Minnesota Law School Exams (C- In Tax) (Jan. 24, 2023)
• The Rise Of The Robotic Tax Analyst (Jan. 27, 2023)
• Ryznar: Exams In The Time Of ChatGPT (Feb. 1, 2023)
• Bishop Posts Two Papers On ChatGPT (Feb. 8, 2023)
• ChatGPT Almost Passed The Bar, But Competent Lawyers Do Much More (Feb. 23, 2023)
• It’s Not Just Our Students: ChatGPT Is Coming For Faculty Scholarship (Feb. 25, 2023)
• New AI Detector Is 97% Effective In Catching Students Cheating With ChatGPT (Feb. 28, 2023)
• It’s Not Just Our Students: ChatGPT Is Coming For Faculty Scholarship (Feb. 25, 2023)
• ChatGPT's Tax Advice Was Wrong 100% Of The Time (Mar. 7, 2023)
• Does ChatGPT Produce Fishy Briefs? (Mar. 8, 2023)
• Colleges (And Law Schools) Are Rushing To Respond To ChatGPT (Mar. 9, 2023)
• Was The Sermon You Heard At Church Today Written By ChatGPT? (Mar. 12, 2023)
• GPT-4 Beats 90% Of Aspiring Lawyers On The Bar Exam (Mar. 17, 2023)
• ChatGPT Thinks I Am Way More Interesting Than I Am (Mar. 22, 2023)
• Should ChatGPT Be In Law School? (Mar. 30, 2023)
• Merritt: GPT-4 On Legal Education And Lawyer Licensing (Apr. 4, 2023)
• Turnitin Plagiarism Detector Will Catch Students Who Cheat With ChatGPT With 98% Accuracy (Apr. 5, 2023)
• ChatGPT Gets 148 (37th Percentile) And 157 (70th Percentile) On The LSAT (Apr. 6, 2023)
• AI Tools for Lawyers: A Practical Guide (Apr. 6, 2023)