Profs Trade Notes As Law Schools Write Generative AI Policies

ABA Journal, Profs Trade Notes as Law Schools Write Generative AI Policies:

With more generative artificial intelligence platforms becoming widely available, law schools are adjusting academic integrity polices, while professors are exchanging notes on how best to integrate the emerging technology in the classroom.

Starting in the spring semester this year, second- and third-year law students will have access to Lexis+ AI, a generative AI platform, a little more than a year after OpenAI launched its free ChatGPT chatbot.

As these platforms become available and evolve, law schools are reacting with initial policies that allow professors to adjust the rules to suit the pedagogical needs of their classes. ...

[T]he policy at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is broad, stating that “students are prohibited from using generative AI to produce, derive or assist in creating any materials or content that is submitted to the instructor.” However, instructors can allow generative AI “to any extent they deem appropriate.”

“If the faculty member doesn’t make it clear what the policy is, then the default policy is that it’s prohibited,” says Daniel W. Linna Jr., a senior lecturer and the director of law and technology initiatives at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. ...

To help law school faculty exchange ideas and notes, Linna and April Dawson, the associate dean of technology and innovation and a professor at the North Carolina Central University School of Law, created an AI and law-related course list on a website for instructors.

To date, 142 faculty from 104 law schools from all over the United States, as well as a few schools from other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Kenya and Spain, according to Linna. Linna and Dawson created a Google group to discuss questions about further developing AI in coursework, Linna adds, and there is an email list developed by Stanford University called CyberProf.