UC Law San Francisco (the law school once known as Hastings College of the Law) announced that the school is making its AI-enabled lawyering lab “AI-enabled lawyering lab a requirement for all JD students, starting with the incoming class of 2029, who will complete the course in their second year.”
From the announcement:
Launched as an optional offering in Spring 2026, the six-session program gives students hands-on experience using AI for core legal tasks while also covering the ethical dimensions of AI use, including privilege, conflicts, and professional responsibility. Offered through LexLab, UC Law SF’s technology law and lawyering center co-led by Director Drew Amerson, the program culminates with a capstone project in which students build their own AI tools, often with little or no prior coding experience. Participants earn a certificate of completion rather than academic credit.
In terms of tone and optics, the contrast between this approach and the approach of its UC sibling school across the Bay Bridge could not be more striking.
One more comment, below the jump.
The move by UC Law SF also corresponds to one of my theories about how AI education will advance in US law schools: not primarily via “classroom” or “doctrinal” faculty, nor via clinicians or legal research and writing faculty, nor even by librarians – although individuals within each of those groups will have their influence and are having that influence already. Instead, the clearest paths through the jungles of the future are being carved by “law labs,” experiential education that does not hew to the “law clinic” mold and that offer abundant opportunities for innovation and experimentation in law schools. These “labs” are under-studied as an institutional development. But as I have observed elsewhere, there are lots of them, and not just in the US, and unlike a lot of units in higher education, they tend to be staffed by “get things done” leaders.
