"Winston Churchill once said about Russia: It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. I'm starting to feel the same way about training young lawyers in the age of AI. How do we, as a profession, train law students and young lawyers with critical skill sets and thinking ability when so much can now be done with AI? It's a continuing and critical question and our thinking needs to continually evolve."
"Shirky makes the point, "Learning is a change in long term memory: that's the biological correlate of what we do in the classroom." Similar to my discussion of the need for repetitive type work to allow young lawyers to begin to see patterns as they develop, Shirky says educational institutions need to move away from take-home assignments and essays and more toward "in class blue book essays, oral examinations, required office hours and other assessments that call on students to demonstrate knowledge in real time.""
Training young lawyers requires adapting legal education to widespread AI capabilities that can perform many traditional tasks. Economists advocate that law schools emphasize generative AI skills and teach students how to use AI effectively. Practical teaching methods such as the Socratic method and adjunct practitioner professors can support skill transfer and pattern recognition. Law librarians report deficits in critical thinking that demand curricular attention. Educational psychologists note that learning involves durable changes in long-term memory, implying that assessments should require real-time demonstration of knowledge. Institutions should shift from take-home essays to in-class bluebook essays, oral exams, required office hours, and other timed assessments.
Read at Above the Law
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