Dyane O’Leary (Suffolk Law) and Jonah Perlin (Georgetown Law), interviewed on the “AI and the Future of Law” podcast by Jen Leonard (Creative Lawyers) and Bridget McCormack (AAA/ICDR)

[W]hat I think every law student should know is that using these tools in their personal world (which is terrific, and as we’ve discussed, a great way to play and learn and get comfortable) is still not the same as using them in legal workflows. So I think what every student needs is a healthy dose of, “I’m not a lawyer yet. I haven’t experienced legal workflows. I don’t understand how things work yet.” And thus a healthy skepticism or patience, if you will, about how they’re going to use these tools as lawyers.

If I can offer another point: I also think students need to have a question set. I have been so surprised to hear my students come back to me after internships and externships and jobs saying they’re either told nothing about the use of AI, or they have one little policy that’s pretty unclear about what they can use and when – or, on the flip side, some are getting great direction and training. So I tell my students: so much is going to change, but at least have, you know, four or five questions that – no matter when you leave this building – in any work environment or clerkship, you ask. You ask, “What am I allowed to use? What’s the policy here? What’s the lay of the land?”

So yes, we can talk about prompting skills and all those things for today’s students. But to me, the basics are: the humility to know that you need a legal skill set to use these tools, and also knowing enough to ask what you don’t know – to figure out what your environment is doing and is comfortable with. Because as we all know, that landscape is hugely varied right now, and I think it will be for a while.