Three major law schools have released guidance on AI use over the last few weeks: UC Berkeley, the University of Texas, and the University of Chicago. The links go to prior TaxProf Blog coverage, which links in turn to primary sources.
I have brief summative comments directed to process questions and therefore aimed more at deans, prospective deans, faculty leaders, and even provosts than to the full cohort of law faculty in the US or elsewhere, or to students, or to practitioners. I am more interested in how these schools did what they did and in what other law schools might do. I am less interested in a “compare and contrast” review of these three schools’ products.
More below the jump.
Whatever any professor, lawyer, or anyone else thinks of any of these statements, it is clear to me that each one involved an enormous amount of thoughtful reflection and coordination among a lot of people. More, I expect, than the amount of work that goes into the effort of “standard” law school committees, even committees with big annual workloads. Not “more” in the sense of “number of hours” (though that may be true) but “more” in the sense of the types of effort and thought involved, and the probability that deliberations will include and have to address an unusually broad range of opinion and commitment.
Big swings at big topics take months to craft under any circumstances, and maybe longer, and “AI” is a bigger swing than most. Most law schools have at least one or two full-time faculty members with research and teaching commitments in “law and technology,” and maybe one or two faculty members with coding and/or gaming habits. It is tempting for a law school to wait for those folks to “figure out AI.” Which is likely an error. AI is already in wide use among *all* law students and even more wide use among prospective students. AI will touch the teaching life of everyone who teaches in your school and many of the people in student support roles, and perhaps beyond. If your school does not have a policy or guidance on AI, and you think that your school should, then setting a plan in motion means anticipating months and months of challenging work – even if your school aims to borrow substantially from any of the three recent products. Because it is “all hands on deck,” in my view.
“An enormous amount of thoughtful reflection and coordination” may conceal as much as it reveals.
At some schools among the three recent announcements, I imagine that the process was more dean-directed. At others, I imagine that it was more faculty-driven.
In the phrase “faculty-driven,” I assume that at some schools a subset of the full faculty drove more of the effort and at others it may have been more of a “committee of the whole” process.
Some of the differences (may) have to do with underlying governance systems and with underlying informal culture. Some of the differences (may) have to do with the likelihood that “what about AI?” is a topic of greater salience and interest to some faculty members, and to some deans, than to others. “Disciplinary expertise,” in say, law-and-tech questions or professional responsibility or clinical education or learning theory may be invaluable even if it need not be determinative.
Some of the differences may have to do with pre-existing cultural norms. Does the faculty have a standing practice of deferring to deans? Or of owning difficult conversations? Are deans or the faculty in the habit of including professional staff, students, graduates, and even the bar in deliberating about major policy decisions?
These are all issues and questions of governance: roles and responsibilities for decision-making. They are also issues and questions of institutional design. They are starting points, not an exhaustive list. I have only sketched the surface of some of the opportunities and problems that policy design in this “space” (“AI” in all its cursed glory) presents.
I’ll close with just one more:
What happens next, even at Berkeley, Texas, and Chicago? Chicago, to its credit, states that its “coordinated approach to classroom and examination policies for the core 1L curriculum during the 2026-2027 academic year” is a “pilot.” I ask: How long will the pilot last? What criteria will be used to evaluate the pilot? Who will do the data collecting and evaluating? What standards will be applied at that point relative to the likely options: stay the course, revert to the prior approach, or modify it (and if so, of course, how and over what time period and subject to what assessment)?
There is no reason for the University of Chicago to respond to me, publicly or privately. For all I know, Chicago has developed a plan, has an existing governance structure, that directly answers my questions. I know for certain, however, that not every law school does. And as policies are being develop, law schools should pay attention to they answer those questions for themselves.
Because “things” won’t go according to policy, or to plan. I’m reminded of Mike Tyson’s prescient words: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.” Will any of these excellent three law schools get punched in the face? I certainly hope not. Who would punch them in the face? I have no idea.
That, of course, is why thinking about next steps is so important.
(The title owes apologies to Fisher and Ury and also to Jeremy Paul and Michael Fischl.)
