How AI Is Prompting Law Schools To Revise Their Honor Codes

Bloomberg Law, How AI is Prompting Law Schools to Revise Their Honor Codes:

Law schools are updating their honor codes to cover use of artificial intelligence in response to students’ rapid uptake of AI.

The changes come as generative AI is transforming legal research and writing, in all facets of the practice of law. In response, law schools are embracing AI education—from coursework to clinics.

But, increasingly popular AI tools—including those embedded in legal research software—combined with a lack of clear guidelines create the risk of ethical issues. As law schools wrestle with how best to educate students on the technology while controlling for dishonesty, school policies range from explicit bans on generative AI use, to allowing professors to set their own rules within limits.

“This is one of the really exciting things about GenAI right now. Students are seeing their professors struggle with it in real time,” said Bryant Walker Smith, associate professor in the schools of law and engineering at the University of South Carolina.

The university’s school of law is among those that recently revised their honor codes, doing so at the beginning of this academic year. The policy, which didn’t previously mention AI, now categorizes unauthorized use as plagiarism.

“Our students are either going to use AI tools or be used by AI tools,” said Smith. ...

What’s clear is that law schools fall across the spectrum when it comes to their embrace of AI in assignments.

Columbia Law School, in line with the university, prohibits using AI unless explicitly permitted by an instructor. However, the University of Pennsylvania Carey and The George Washington University Law School leave it up to professors to set their own policies within general guidelines on academic honesty.

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