Key insights:

• • • AI’s greatest strength in criminal justice is pattern recognition鈥� AI can process vast amounts of data quickly, helping law enforcement and legal professionals detect connections, reduce oversight gaps, and improve consistency across investigations and casework.

    • AI should strengthen justice, not substitute for human judgment鈥� Legal professionals are integral to evaluating AI-generated outputs, especially when decisions affect evidence, warrants, and individuals鈥� constitutional rights.

    • The most effective model is human/AI collaboration鈥� AI handles scale and speed, while judges, attorneys, and investigators provide context, accountability, and ethical reasoning needed to protect due process.

The law has always been about patterns 鈥� patterns of behavior, patterns of evidence, and patterns of justice. Now, courts and law enforcement can leverage a tool powerful enough to see those patterns at a scale at a speed no human mind could match: AI.

At its core, AI works by recognizing patterns. Rather than simply matching keywords, it learns from large amounts of existing text to understand meaning and context and uses that learning to make predictions about what comes next. In the context of law enforcement, that capability is nothing short of transformative.

These themes were front and center in a recent webinar, , from the听, a joint effort by the National Center for State Courts听(NCSC) and the 成人VR视频 Institute (TRI). The webinar brought together voices from across the justice system, and what emerged was a clear and consistent message: AI is a powerful ally in the pursuit of justice, but only when paired with the judgment, accountability, and constitutional grounding that human professionals can provide.

AI’s pattern recognition is a gamechanger

“AI is excellent,鈥� said Mark Cheatham, Chief of Police in Acworth, Georgia, during the webinar. 鈥淚t is better than anyone else in your office at recognizing patterns. No doubt about it. It is the smartest, most capable employee that you have.”

That kind of capability, applied to the demands of modern policing, investigation, and prosecution, is a genuine gamechanger. However, the promise of AI extends far beyond the patrol car or the precinct. Indeed, it cascades through the entire arc of justice 鈥� from the moment a crime is detected all the way through prosecution and adjudication.

Each step in that chain represents not just an operational and efficiency upgrade, but an opportunity to make the system more fair, more consistent, and more protective of the rights of everyone involved.

Webinar participants considered the practical implications. For example, AI can identify and mitigate human error in decision-making, promoting greater consistency and fairness in outcomes across cases. And by automating labor-intensive tasks such as reviewing body camera footage, AI frees prosecutors and defense attorneys to focus on other aspects of their work that demand professional judgment and legal expertise.

In legal education, the potential of AI is similarly recognized. Hon. Eric DuBois of the 9th Judicial Circuit Court in Florida emphasizes its role as a tool rather than a substitute. “I encourage the law students to use AI as a starting point,鈥� Judge DuBois explained. 鈥淏ut it’s not going to replace us. You’ve got to put the work in, you’ve got to put the effort in.”

AI can never replace the detective, the prosecutor, the judge, or the defense attorney; however, it can work alongside them, handling the volume and velocity of data that no human team could process alone.

Judge DuBois’ perspective aligns with broader judicial sentiment on the responsible integration of AI. In fact, one consistent theme across the webinar was the necessity of maintaining human oversight. The role of the legal professional remains central, participants stressed, because that ensures accuracy, accountability, and ethical judgment. The appropriate placement of human expertise within AI-assisted processes is essential to ensuring a fair and effective legal system.

That balance between leveraging AI and preserving human judgment is not just good practice, rather it鈥檚 a cornerstone of justice. While Chief Cheatham praises AI’s pattern recognition, he also cautions that it “will call in sick, frequently and unexpectedly.” In other words, AI is a powerful but imperfect tool, and those professionals who rely on it must always be prepared to intervene in those situations in which AI falls short. Moreover, the technology is improving extremely rapidly, and the models we are using today will likely be the worst models we ever use.

Naturally, that readiness is especially critical when individuals鈥� rights are on the line. 鈥淎 human cannot just rely on that machine,鈥� said Joyce King, Deputy State’s Attorney for Frederick County in Maryland. 鈥淵ou need a warrant to open that cyber tip separately, to get human eyes on that for confirmation, that we cannot rely on the machine.” Clearly, as the webinar explained, AI does not replace constitutional obligations; rather, it operates within them, and the professionals who use AI are still the guardians of due process.

The human/AI partnership is where justice is served

Bob Rhodes, Chief Technology Officer for 成人VR视频 Special Services (TRSS) echoed that sentiment with a principle that cuts across every application of AI in the justice system. “The number one thing鈥� is a human should always be in the loop to verify what the systems are giving them,” Rhodes said.

This is not a limitation of AI; instead, it鈥檚 the design of a system that works. AI identifies the patterns, and trained, experienced professionals evaluate them, act on them, and are accountable for them.

That partnership is where the real opportunity lives. AI can never replace the detective, the prosecutor, the judge, or the defense attorney. However, it can work alongside them, handling the volume and velocity of data that no human team could process alone. So that means the humans in the room can focus on what they do best: applying judgment, upholding the law, and protecting an individual鈥檚 rights.

For judicial and law enforcement professionals, this is the moment to lean in. The patterns are there, the technology to read them is here, and the opportunity to use both in service of rights 鈥� not against them 鈥� has never been greater.

Please add your voice to 成人VR视频鈥� flagship , a global study exploring how the professional landscape continues to change.听

Key takeaways:

• • • Anchoring distorts judgment before you begin 鈥� Research shows a first draft shapes subsequent decisions; and an AI draft is the most seductive anchor imaginable, because it looks exactly like something a lawyer would write.

    • The First Draft Trap inverts legal training 鈥� The Socratic method builds the habit of holding multiple possibilities in tension before committing; but an AI first draft collapses that space before the real thinking begins.

    • The fix is to ask for the map, not the draft 鈥� Requesting multiple strategic framings before writing keeps judgment where it belongs and uses AI to expand possibilities rather than foreclose them.

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Welcome back to听The AI Law Professor. Last month, I examined why promised efficiency gains often become a cycle of work intensification. This month, I want to address a subtler challenge. I call it the First Draft Trap and understanding it may change how you reach for AI the next time a new matter lands on your desk

We have all heard the pitch: Staring at a blank page? Just prompt the AI. In seconds you have a working draft: structured, coherent, and surprisingly competent. The blank page problem, that ancient enemy of productivity, thus has been vanquished.

Except the blank page itself was never just an obstacle; rather, it was a space of possibility. For lawyers, it was the space in which the most important part of their work actually happens. Now, with AI in the mix, that may be changing.

Welcome to the First Draft Trap.

Simply put, the First Draft Trap is this: The moment you accept an AI-generated draft as your starting point, you have already made the most consequential decision of the entire project 鈥� most importantly, you made it by not making it. You let the machine choose your direction, your framing, and your theory. Everything that follows is editing; and editing, no matter how rigorous, is not the same as thinking.

The cognitive hijack

There is solid psychology behind why this happens. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated in their landmark 1974 paper, , that once people are exposed to an idea, this first impression distorts their subsequent judgments and becomes a mental anchor. In their experiments, subjects who watched a roulette wheel spin to a random number still let that number influence their estimates of completely unrelated quantities. The anchor held even when people knew it was meaningless.

Please join Tom Martin at the on April 28鈥�29. It鈥檚 virtual and completely free 鈥� two days of keynotes, panels, and workshops on AI and the legal profession

An AI first draft is the most seductive anchor imaginable. It is not random 鈥� it is plausible, and it is well-organized. It sounds like something a lawyer would write. And that is precisely what makes it dangerous. You know intellectually that it is just one of many possible approaches to addressing the matter, but the anchor holds anyway.

That is the First Draft Trap at the cognitive level. The AI draft is not just one option you happen to prefer. It is a filter that prevents you from seeing the other options that were available to you, the roads you never even noticed that you did not take.

Consider what this means for a profession built on the opposite instinct. From the first day of law school, lawyers are trained to resist the obvious answer and to think like a lawyer. The Socratic method exists for exactly this reason. A good professor hears your confident response and asks: What else? What if the facts were different? What is the argument on the other side? The goal is not to arrive at an answer, per se. It is to build the mental habit of holding multiple possibilities in tension before committing to any one of them.

The First Draft Trap is the anti-Socratic method. It delivers a confident answer before you have even formulated the question properly 鈥� and instead of interrogating it, you polish it.

The value of the blank page

Think about what a senior partner actually does when a junior associate brings them a memo. The partner鈥檚 value is not better writing; rather, it is peripheral vision: The ability to see what the memo does not address, the argument not considered, or the framing that would land differently with this particular judge or this particular jury. That capacity to see beyond the document in front of them is why clients pay senior partners premium rates. And it is precisely the muscle that atrophies when your default workflow begins with the prompt generate a draft.

The AI draft is not just one option you happen to prefer. It is a filter that prevents you from seeing the other options that were available to you, the roads you never even noticed that you did not take.

The two-system framework offered by Kahneman and Tversky gives us a clean way to describe what is going wrong. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and pattern-matching; while System 2 is slow, deliberate, and analytical. The practice of law, at its best, is a System 2 discipline. We, as lawyers, are trained to override gut reactions, challenge assumptions, and think through consequences before acting.

In this way, the AI first draft feels like a System 2 output. It is structured, footnoted, and methodical. However, your decision to accept it as a starting point is pure System 1 鈥� a fast, intuitive grab at the nearest plausible answer. You have used a sophisticated tool to bypass the sophisticated thinking the tool was supposed to support. That uncomfortable period of ambiguity, of not knowing which path is best, is where the real lawyering lives.

What to do instead

None of this means stop using AI. It means stop using AI to skip the hard part that matters.

Before you ever ask for a draft, ask for the map. Describe the matter or document you are working on, then ask the AI for three fundamentally different strategic framings for the problem. For each framing, request the strongest argument in its favor and its most serious vulnerability. Then ask which framing best fits the client鈥檚 goals, the audience, or the procedural posture. Close with a clear instruction: Do not write a draft yet.

That last instruction is the key. It keeps you in the driver鈥檚 seat during the phase that matters most. You are using AI to expand the possibilities before you prune them, not after. And, most importantly, it gives you the opportunity to think for yourself about other important possibilities and add them in.

In the terms used by Kahneman and Tversky, use AI to fuel System 2, not to hand the controls to System 1. Let the machine generate options, and you exercise judgment.

For lawyers, the ability to see what is not there is the whole game.

Do not let the first draft blind you to it.

Tom Martin is CEO & Founder of LawDroid, Adjunct Professor at Suffolk University Law School, and author of the forthcoming听. He is 鈥淭he AI Law Professor鈥� and writes this eponymous column for the 成人VR视频 Institute.

Key insights:

• • • • Creating prototypes of IP-protected teaching tools 鈥� Law school faculty can build working AI teaching tool prototypes in one to two hours without IP worries because key optional settings enable a closed system to ensure professors’ intellectual property remains protected.

      • Strong prompting skills create faster prototypes 鈥� The best instructions initially set the AI’s character, explains what the AI needs to accomplish, lists which documents to reference exclusively, describes how the response should be formatted, and mentions any applicable legal jurisdiction limits.

      • Feedback from students is positive 鈥� Students鈥� responses show AI simulators reduce anxiety and build confidence by providing unlimited low-stakes practice opportunities that make legal concepts more digestible through active dialogue rather than passive reading.

Law schools face a persistent challenge on how to provide individualized skills practice when one professor must serve many students. And today鈥檚 traditional legal education offers limited opportunities for students to practice oral arguments, evidentiary objections, and witness examinations. Indeed, the repetition necessary to build authentic courtroom skills does not scale easily with law professors in the classroom alone.

To address this challenge, at the University of Missouri鈥揔ansas City School of Law听 that simulate trial judges, three-panel appellate courts, witnesses, and evidentiary objection scenarios. Prof. Serra has seen firsthand how these tools give students unlimited, low-stakes practice opportunities that reduce their anxiety while building confidence in their legal reasoning and judgement.

Building your first AI learning tool, step by step

Creating custom AI teaching tools requires far less technical expertise than most professors would assume. As Prof. Serra explains, if you have a general idea of what you want the tool to accomplish, then 鈥測ou can have a working prototype in less than two hours from idea to execution.”

The process begins with choosing a large language model (LLM) platform, such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and securing a paid subscription, which most law schools will provide, she explains. During the sign-up process, optional settings enable a closed system to ensure law professors鈥� intellectual property is not shown to the students and is not used to train the LLMs.

Next, you should gather class materials, including slides, case files, manuals, and problems the professor has already created. After that, it is necessary to define one specific use case, such as an evidentiary objections practice tool, a Socratic method simulator, or a client interview assistant.

The building process itself takes about one to two hours and requires no coding skills. 鈥淵ou just start talking to the LLM like you are training a teaching assistant to do exactly what you want to do,” Prof. Serra adds.

Having built many tools, she highlights three critical components that are necessary for the efficient, useful, and flexible prototype. These include:

1. Prompting skills

Effective prompting is key to generating a good prototype. 听According to Prof. Serra, the ideal prompt includes defining the AI’s role (You are a trial judge in a federal district court), specifying the task the AI should deliver, identifying which documents to use exclusively, describing the desired output format, and including any jurisdictional constraints.

2. Multimodal features in AI tools

Most platforms allow for voice-activated chat mode, in addition to typing back and forth, which helps students respond out loud in real time. Custom AI tools also have shareable links, which enables easy deployment to students. Once a student engages with the tool, they can send back a transcript of the interaction. Some platforms even allow shareable audio files so students can get feedback from their professors on skills performance, not just content.

3. Verifying reliability

Evaluating the quality of the AI output is important but naturally varies by use case. For classroom tools, Prof. Serra recommends deploying prototypes quickly and using students as testers. If the tool produces outputs with inaccuracies, she encourages students to bring these errors to class for discussion. That way, everyone learns how to critically diagnose problems with AI outputs. A variety of problems cause AI inaccuracies 鈥� the AI itself, poor prompting, incorrect legal reasoning, or incomplete training.

For wider deployment without the builder鈥檚 direct oversight, Prof. Serra recommends an extended period of testing and iteration. Her tool, MootMentorAI, which simulates a three-judge appellate panel for first-year law students preparing for oral argument, is one example. Because MootMentorAI was developed for use by a colleague, Prof. Serra worked with a research assistant to conduct 80 simulations over the course of a semester 鈥� 40 from the plaintiff鈥檚 perspective and 40 from the defendant鈥檚 perspective 鈥� to verify reliability and improve performance before deployment without her supervision.

Overcoming adoption barriers among peers

Faculty resistance remains the most significant barrier to deploying AI-enabled teaching tools in legal education. “There’s lots of faculty pushback, distrust, and a healthy dose of skepticism with AI,” Prof. Serra acknowledges, arguing that even so, AI-powered tools are teaching assets for all law school courses. 鈥淓ven in doctrinal classes that run on traditional Socratic dialogue, professors can still use AI to reinforce learning outside the classroom through tools, such as podcast-style lectures, a multiple-choice practice assistant, tools to enable issue-spotting, and essay practice tied to course fact patterns.鈥�

Common concerns among law school faculty include confidentiality, intellectual property protection, fear of revealing exam content, and perceived lack of technical expertise. However, Prof. Serra points out that these fears often stem from her colleagues鈥� misunderstanding of how closed systems work. Indeed, if privacy settings are correctly deployed, uploaded materials will not be used to train public models and students cannot access source documents.

Indeed, the most effective strategy for overcoming resistance is personal demonstration, she says, noting that she frequently sits down with colleagues virtually to build tools based on the colleague鈥檚 own use case. She鈥檚 built everything from a Startup CEO simulator for a business course, to an interview assistant for Career Services, to a simulated forensics expert for students to cross-examine. This grassroots approach, combined with speaking at conferences and identifying super fans who can champion the technology, gradually builds institutional buy-in, she adds.

Multifaceted student feedback

Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with learners describing how AI simulators make legal skills training more accessible, more engaging, and less intimidating. In fact, students are often surprised by how convincingly AI tools can simulate judges, witnesses, and other real-world lawyering scenarios. They also appreciate having permission to use AI as a legitimate learning aid.

They also report that real-time interaction makes course concepts more digestible because these tools turn learning into an active dialogue rather than passively staring at a casebook. Finally, students say the simulators reduce anxiety before oral arguments or presentations by enabling unlimited, low-stakes repetition that builds confidence and keeps practice from feeling overwhelming.

Clearly, AI tools are quickly becoming essential learning infrastructure, and legal education cannot afford to treat them as optional add-ons if it expects to stay relevant. As a growing chorus of educators and employers warns that institutions must evolve, the real question is whether schools will build responsible, faculty-guided systems fast enough to meet students where the profession is headed.

When deployed thoughtfully, these platforms can scale individualized skills training, deepen engagement beyond the casebook, and build durable confidence that law students can carry into their future legal practice.

You can download a full copy of the 成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚听recent white paper, , here

Key highlights:

• • • Education and licensing misalignment 鈥� Legal education and attorney licensing are misaligned with the real-world skills and practical competencies new lawyers need to serve clients and address the nation鈥檚 growing access to justice crisis.

    • Strong support for licensing reform 鈥� There is strong momentum and support for reforming traditional pathways to legal licensure, according to research conducted by a body of chief justices and state court administrators.

    • Change will require leadership 鈥� Lasting, systemic change requires leadership and collaboration among state supreme courts, law schools, bar examiners, and the practicing bar.

For decades, cracks have widened in the nation鈥檚 promise of justice for all, with millions of people every year unable to find or afford legal help when they need it most. As the legal system in the United States faces a reckoning, one outline for change has emerged with the recently released (CLEAR), a body of chief justices and court administrators from a variety of states across the country. (CLEAR cited support from the 成人VR视频 Institute in the production of the report.)

The CLEAR group is calling for a radical change in how lawyers are taught and licensed. The report cites several factors driving the need for reform, including:

Increases in legal deserts and self-represented litigants 鈥� Judges in courtrooms across the country routinely see self-represented litigants, while so-called legal deserts, especially in rural areas, leave entire communities with few or no attorneys at all. Indeed, according to the American Bar Association, are considered legal deserts, with less than one lawyer per 1,000 people. As a result, most litigants are left to navigate a complex court system with inadequate or no legal assistance in family, probate and estate, housing, consumer, and criminal matters, according to the .

Declining interest in public sector work 鈥� The public interest sector, which includes civil legal aid, public defenders, and prosecutors, is buckling under the weight of crushing caseloads, stagnant federal and state funding, and a persistent shortage of lawyers. Indeed, students face numerous barriers to pursuing a career in public interest law, according to the CLEAR report, from less predictable career paths as compared to private practice, to a perceived lack of prestige in many schools, to the prospect of managing educational loans on a public interest lawyer鈥檚 salary.

Rapid technology changes 鈥� Compounding these challenges, advanced technology and especially AI are rapidly reshaping the legal profession. This, in part, is leading to that are essential for skill development because AI 鈥� which excels in tasks like legal research, writing, and drafting 鈥� now is handling work that had been historically assigned to associates and was a big part of how they learned their craft.

Defining practice readiness and minimum competence

Against this backdrop, the CLEAR report calls for overhauling how law schools educate attorneys and how bar admissions assess attorney readiness. More specifically, the report recommends a sharper, modern definition of practice readiness that more clearly defines the blend of knowledge, skills, and professional abilities that new lawyers must possess to competently serve clients from day one across four essential pillars. These pillars are i) foundational legal knowledge and analytical skills; ii) strong ethics and professionalism; iii) durable communication and interpersonal abilities; and iv) practical legal skills like advocacy, negotiation, and client management.

For the report, CLEAR surveyed of more than 4,000 judges, 4,000 attorneys, and 600 law students; and the committee鈥檚 findings consistently reveal that new lawyers struggle with practical legal skills, which include effective client communication, negotiation, and courtroom advocacy in addition to 17 other skills.

Feedback from survey participants points to the fact that these skills, which are crucial for the daily realities of legal practices, are not taught in law schools to a large degree. For example, only 7%听of experienced attorneys with more than five years of practice report that newly admitted attorneys, most of which are right out of law school, were very well or extremely well prepared to communicate effectively with clients. Likewise, 61%听of experienced attorneys said new lawyers were not well prepared or only slightly well prepared in negotiation, and 55%听of experienced attorneys said the same about new lawyers when it came to questioning and interviewing witnesses.

In addition, 66%听of judges say that new attorneys in their first five years of practice sometimes, rarely, or never competently conducted direct and cross examinations.

New pathways to licensure beyond the bar exam

Meanwhile, an additional insight from the CLEAR report highlights how the bar exam continues to focus heavily on theoretical knowledge and memorization, rather than the practical, day-to-day skills that define minimum competence. At the same time, the is more focused on foundation skills, including legal research, legal writing, and issue-spotting and analysis.

To address the dissatisfaction with the traditional bar exam, some states have been piloting innovative licensure pathways that better align with the skills new lawyers need. Such approaches include curricular pathways, such as in the in New Hampshire, and at the University of Wisconsin鈥檚 law school. Other methods are supervised practice models, such as in Oregon鈥檚 , , and temporary pandemic-era alternatives that provided graduates with the ability to prove their competence under the guidance of experienced attorneys.

Top recommendations for state supreme courts

The CLEAR group advocates for state supreme courts, as the profession鈥檚 primary regulators, to lead and foster innovation in licensure and practice readiness. The report urges state supreme courts to take such action as:

Lead collaborative efforts to realign legal education, bar admissions, and new lawyers鈥� readiness with public needs 鈥� State supreme courts are uniquely well-positioned to lead efforts to create a legal system that better addresses the legal needs of the communities they serve.

Encourage law school accreditation that serves the public 鈥� State supreme courts should encourage an accreditation process that promotes innovation, experimentation, and cost-effective legal education geared toward the goal of having lawyers meet the legal needs of the public.

Reform bar admissions processes to better meet public needs 鈥� This reform includes adjusting bar admission by setting passing scores based on evidence and piloting alternative pathways to passing the exam or equivalent assessment.

To put CLEAR鈥檚 recommendations for state supreme courts into practice, however, bold, coordinated action by law school administrators and the American Bar Association (as the accreditor of law schools) are critical as well. In particular, there is a need for expansion of experiential learning, such as clinics, externships, and simulation courses, to help students gain meaningful, hands-on experience and have direct responsibility with clients. In addition, aligning curricula with the realities of practice by integrating practical skills, ethics, and professional identity formation throughout, rather than relegating those factors to optional or add-on courses is another necessary reform.

Legal education and licensing must rapidly evolve to meet the nation鈥檚 urgent access-to-justice challenges, the CLEAR report notes. Law schools and state supreme courts must work together with renewed urgency and vision to lead this transformation. The failure to act by both law schools and courts means the justice gap in the US will only widen. Only with urgent, collaborative innovation to enact these changes can the legal profession deliver on the promise of justice for all in the decades to come.

You can access the full here

Key findings:

• • • Law schools as innovation hubs 鈥� Several law schools across the US are becoming laboratories for access to justice, using technology and partnerships to develop scalable legal tools that help underserved communities.

    • Technology-driven experiential learning 鈥� Students are gaining hands-on experience by building digital tools 鈥� like document automation, chatbots, and AI-powered self-service tools 鈥� that expand legal services and improve service delivery.

    • Systemic impact on legal education 鈥� These programs offer not just innovation at the local level but present an opportunity for a structural shift in legal education and justice reform more broadly.

Law schools are stepping into a critical role as laboratories for persistent access to justice challenges. As the legal system grapples with rising demand and constrained resources, many law schools are forging partnerships, launching clinics, and embracing technology to bridge the justice gap.

Experiential learning is increasingly important in the rapidly changing legal sector, and with technological innovation, it is helping to close justice gaps that traditional models have failed to address. By embedding students into tech-enabled, hybrid frontline legal services and having them work on building scalable, human-centered solutions, a growing number of legal education programs have embraced this dual imperative. Students learn the law and deploy it through digital tools, virtual services, and data-informed strategies that help them augment their abilities and maximize impact.

Building for scale with guided tools

Many law school-based tech clinics currently leverage technology not just to serve clients, but to test new methods of delivery. Early pioneers in this space include collaborations with Pro Bono Net and schools like Chicago-Kent College of Law and Suffolk University Law School. Using the LawHelp Interactive platform, students recently built guided interviews and digital self-help forms with tools like A2J Author and HotDocs to assist unrepresented litigants navigating thorny legal issues such as divorce, eviction, and domestic violence.

These tools 鈥� designed to be used independently by non-lawyers 鈥� exemplify a modern variation on experiential education in which students create scalable, public-facing tools with measurable impact.

For example, Western New England School of Law鈥檚 Center for Social Justice uses document automation and online in-take portals to provide services for criminal record expungement and LGBTQ+ legal support. Students provide targeted services at scale, reaching individuals who may otherwise be excluded from traditional legal systems due to transportation, financial, or cultural barriers.

As the legal system grapples with rising demand and constrained resources, many law schools are forging partnerships, launching clinics, and embracing technology to bridge the justice gap.

At Suffolk University’s Legal Innovation and Technology Clinic, law students collaborate with legal aid organizations and courts to develop scalable solutions for civil legal issues. Students are taught project management and computer programming to create powerful tools that directly assist unrepresented parties, including and online guided interviews which help people navigate processes such as .

Ohio State University鈥檚 Justice Tech Practicum brings together law students and computer science students to design, build, test, and refine technologies aimed at addressing access to justice issues. The program is currently working with the Self-Help Center of Franklin County to develop tools for tenants facing eviction.

Tech clinics as justice design labs

Law school clinics are increasingly functioning as innovation labs for system-level design 鈥� incubating, testing, and improving justice tools in real time. Suffolk University’s Legal Innovation and Technology Clinic is partnering with the American Arbitration Association to pilot tech-driven approaches to low-contest divorces and family law matters in Massachusetts. Students help design and test accessible digital tools that streamline dispute resolution processes.

At the , the Innovation for Justice program collaborated with the Alaska Legal Services Corporation to improve Benefactor, a digital tool that helps guide case managers, social workers, and community navigators through the Social Security disability application process. The Arizona UX for Justice team delivered a human-centered design roadmap for product refinement, legal empowerment, and broader implementation.

Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) is also tapping into the power of collaborative tech development. Through its Innovation Lab, LANC worked with law students from Duke and Vanderbilt universities to develop and refine its Legal Information Answers chatbot with students conducting auditing and user testing to optimize the client experience. Vanderbilt students also analyzed LANC lawyer workflows to identify how AI tools might improve staff effectiveness.

AI and data-driven legal empowerment

Law schools are also leveraging AI to improve access to justice, transparency, and user experience. VAILL, the Vanderbilt AI Law Lab, is collaborating with lawyers from the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee, Vanderbilt Data Science Institute (DSI) students and staff, and courts to create and implement Day in Court, a tool to help unrepresented parties navigate court appearances successfully. The pilot will initially focus on small claims matters and provide a platform that can be replicated in other jurisdictions. VAILL and DSI also collaborated to create an advanced directive tool, powered by generative AI (GenAI), for Tennesseans, a technology that will serve as the model for a future suite of self-service life planning tools.

Law school clinics are increasingly functioning as innovation labs for system-level design 鈥� incubating, testing, and improving justice tools in real time.

The Stanford Legal Design Lab engages students in service design, user research, and AI strategy in partnership with public interest organizations like Legal Services Corporation, the American Bar Association, Los Angeles courts, and legal aid groups around the country. Students conduct community interviews, run workshops, and develop accountability frameworks for AI-powered justice. In one project, Stanford students collaborated with the NAACP to refine and scale their Housing Navigator, an eviction prevention pilot that can help tenants navigate housing instability.

Implications for legal education

These are just a few examples of law school programs that are reimagining the student鈥檚 role not simply as a temporary service provider, but as a developer of justice infrastructure. What distinguishes these programs is not just innovation at the local level, but the structural insight they offer for legal education and justice reform more broadly. They suggest a model in which:

• • • experiential learning is centered on service delivery;
    • technology is now integral, not peripheral, to legal education; and
    • students contribute to justice infrastructure, not just as one-time interventions.

These models also underscore the power of public-private collaboration. As more courts digitize their services, these student-built tools are increasingly integrated into formal legal processes. Organizations can expand their capacity without proportional increases in cost or headcount, while advancing digital literacy among students and clients alike. Law schools, in this context, are neither isolated nor purely academic 鈥� they are collaborators and facilitators in a broader ecosystem of justice.

As legal needs intensify amid economic and social strain, these programs offer more than isolated success stories. They present a blueprint for rethinking how legal services are delivered and who delivers them. By treating law students not only as future lawyers but also as present contributors 鈥� and by equipping them with technology to do so efficiently 鈥� these initiatives are helping to shift the access-to-justice paradigm from one of scarcity to one of scalability.

For policymakers, educators, and legal professionals, the message is clear: innovation doesn鈥檛 have to wait for graduation. It鈥檚 happening now 鈥� in clinics, classrooms, and cloud-based platforms 鈥� where tomorrow鈥檚 lawyers are building the infrastructure for a more just and accessible legal system today.

You can find more articles in our Scaling Justice series here

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) , coming at the end of April, is set to explore these advancements through a careful focus on training and experiential learning 鈥� two pillars that should be central to legal technology education in any setting.

5 concepts reshaping the legal profession

First, we want to explore five critical educational concepts 鈥� a few of the many 鈥� that are reshaping the legal profession and briefly highlight how to support the need for training and upskilling in these areas.

1. The necessity of GenAI literacy

GenAI is either already revolutionizing or is at least well positioned to revolutionize the way legal professionals conduct research, draft documents, oversee operational aspects of law firm administration and managing client interactions. The American Bar Association (ABA) is already developing emerging rules for AI governance, underscoring the urgency of integrating this knowledge into legal education. In addition, the European Union and several US states also are leading the way in this area.

Beyond theoretical understanding, the profession requires hands-on training to effectively use well-known AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, legal domain-specific tools, and many others. These tools can automate routine tasks like contract drafting and data analysis but require an understanding of some of the potential pitfalls and the need for monitoring within the course of using AI to avoid biases, hallucinations, privacy and confidentiality violations, and more.

These experiential learning concepts are most helpful in training legal professionals. Mock scenarios and can prepare students to harness these tools effectively while understanding the ethical considerations that accompany their use.

At ILTA EVOLVE 2025, for example, attendees can expect practical demonstrations and real-world case studies on GenAI applications. Indeed, GenAI is not just about efficiency, it鈥檚 about transforming the way professionals approach legal work. To stay competitive, legal professionals need both a conceptual framework and the practical skills to leverage this technology responsibly.

2. Addressing emerging cybersecurity risks

With law firms serving as repositories for highly sensitive client information while working on complex transitions requiring confidentiality, cybersecurity is a cornerstone of modern legal practice. The escalating sophistication of cyber-threats demands that legal professionals understand concepts like information governance, data breach response, and emerging cyber-risk areas, both from the offensive and defensive perspectives of the discipline.

Legal education programs must go beyond theoretical discussions to do a deep dive into technology and offer actionable training in areas such as , cybersecurity protocols, and risk mitigation strategies. The Dark Web, facial recognition technology, and cited by US law enforcement should also be elements of this education.

ILTA EVOLVE 2025鈥檚 agenda places cybersecurity front and center, technology providers develop hands-on workshops and simulations for attendees that mirror real-world cyber incidents. Not surprisingly, the legal profession is uniquely vulnerable to cyberattacks and protecting client data must be a top priority. Education around cybersecurity issues is not optional 鈥� it鈥檚 an ethical and professional obligation.

3. Developing information governance expertise

Information governance 鈥� the effective management of information assets 鈥� is increasingly critical for law firms as they navigate complex regulatory environments. Poor information governance not only risks non-compliance but also undermines a firm’s operational efficiency and client trust.

Educational events are served well by prioritizing this area and offering sessions and workshops that combine theoretical frameworks with practical exercises. The ILTA EVOLVE 2025 conference dedicates several sessions to this topic, helping attendees understand the lifecycle of information management from creation to disposal.

4. Emerging standards and legal technology ethics

As technology evolves, so too do the standards and ethical considerations that govern its use. The ABA鈥檚 emerging rules on AI such as and other frameworks like ISO 42001 offer guiding principles, but legal professionals need more than awareness. They need actionable insights into how these standards affect their day-to-day work. Consider the European Union鈥檚 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and also well-known acts such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These standards and regulations are ever-changing, and engaging with industry experts to understand compliance is an important element for all legal technologists.

Legal education should also examine both the ethical implications and practical applications of emerging standards. Potentially, moot compliance audits or real-life past use cases may emerge as innovative ways to engage event attendees with these concepts as well as sessions that break down these standards into practical applications.

5. The value of experiential learning

Experiential learning opportunities 鈥� whether in law schools, professional organizations, or conferences 鈥� enable participants to build confidence and competence in real-world settings. For example, workshops that simulate AI-assisted litigation or cybersecurity breach response can prepare legal professionals to navigate complex scenarios with agility and expertise.

There is a broader need for experiential learning in legal education, where offering practical, technology-focused training is an element of increasing focus. For example, one of the standout features of ILTA EVOLVE 2025 is its focus on experiential learning that includes four hands-on workshops to give participants the opportunity to directly engage with cutting-edge tools and techniques.

The path forward for legal education

As the legal profession undergoes a profound transformation, education must adapt to prepare professionals for the challenges and opportunities ahead. Institutions must integrate experiential learning, emphasize emerging technologies, and provide actionable training that mirrors real-world demands.

By addressing key themes such as GenAI, cybersecurity, information governance, and emerging standards, educational events can equip attendees with actionable insights and set a benchmark for how legal education should evolve.

You can find out more about ILTA鈥檚 here

Among the other respondents, however, the feeling was not necessarily distaste for generative AI, although some of that did exist. Instead, many are still simply unsure exactly what generative AI is or what it can do. Yet, considering the pace at which law firms have adopted technology previously, this is an understandable feeling given that the public release of OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT occurred only in November 2022.

Overall, the report found uncertainty across the board among law firm respondents: 25% said they did not know whether generative AI should be applied to legal work, and 21% did not know whether it should be applied to non-legal work. These feelings even extended to other forms of AI outside of generative AI/ChatGPT, as 24% did not know whether their firm uses AI outside of the generative context.

Jason Adaska, Director of the Innovation Lab at , has a team of data scientists working on potential generative AI applications for the firm. Adaska says that because generative AI has appeared on the scene so quickly, there is 鈥渁n increasing bifurcation in the conversations that I have鈥� between people interested in using it and those unaware of its existence.

鈥淪ome people, they’ve seen it in the media, they’re kind of up to date with it,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭hey may not come from a technology perspective, but at least they know about the conversation. Even in March I had some conversations with people who say, 鈥業 didn’t catch that. What is ChatGPT, what is this word you鈥檙e throwing at me?鈥欌��

Discovering how generative AI & ChatGPT can help

Similarly, Arsen Shirokov, National Director, Information Technology at , has already begun having conversations with internal stakeholders and external vendors about ways generative AI can be applied in his firm. A sticking point he鈥檚 run into, however, is that unlike previous legal technologies that have had a distinct use case, generative AI鈥檚 applications are so expansive that they can be hard to nail down.

鈥淎lmost everywhere else in technology, you say what this product is: this is an IG solution, this is a business workflow solution, this is an architecture solution, right? 鈥ith generative AI, I think we haven鈥檛 figured that out yet,鈥� Shirokov says. 鈥淲e don’t necessarily know which generative AI solutions are for research, for example. Take ChatGPT: It can also draft things for you, but for review, you cannot feed the bunch of documents to ChatGPT yet and just say, review this.鈥�

Until those questions are answered, many lawyers also remain unsure of how their firms will handle generative AI on a wider scale. Our report found that 36% of respondents said they did not know whether their law firm had risk concerns around generative AI usage. Additionally, 19% did not know whether their firm had issued warnings against unauthorized generative AI use; and 22% did not know whether their firm had banned unauthorized generative AI use outright.

鈥淗ow are we going to get people comfortable not just with the technology, but with the fact that they are interacting with a machine, and yet it doesn’t feel like you’re interacting with a machine?鈥�

Even those respondents who reported their firm had underlying risk concerns over these advanced technologies counted a lack of technological maturity as one of those barriers. 鈥淎 lack of understanding of the underlying risks,鈥� wrote one respondent when asked why their firm had concerns around generative AI.

鈥淟ack of insight/ability to control algorithms, data sets, and assumptions/biases of generated results. Lack of disclosure of disclaimers, boundaries, and assumptions when results return. Lack of ability to assess confidence in generated results,鈥� wrote another.

As a result, for those law firms actively considering embracing generative AI 鈥� the report found 40% of firms were at least considering its use 鈥� encouraging adoption may be as much of a knowledge and informational issue as a technological issue. To that end, Jessica Lipson, Partner and Co-Chair of the Technology, Data & IP Department at , said her firm has been treating communication as a 鈥渉igh strategic issue鈥� in potentially adopting generative AI technologies. 鈥淗ow are we going to get people comfortable not just with the technology, but with the fact that they are interacting with a machine, and yet it doesn’t feel like you’re interacting with a machine?鈥� Lipson asks.

Part of the answer may take a cue from the 1989 film : 鈥淚f you build it, they will come.鈥�

Holland & Hart鈥檚 Adaska says he鈥檚 gained interest in his team鈥檚 generative AI efforts by simply letting attorneys play around with the tool themselves. 鈥淚 think that’s the story of the last few months in this,鈥� Adaska adds. 鈥淎 number of people who maybe would have either not paid attention or have been skeptical are being won over by actually trying things they thought weren’t possible and being pleasantly surprised.鈥�

This access-to-justice (ATJ) gap has remained stubbornly consistent over the last few years and law schools have a significant role to play to address the problem, says Joe Regalia, a law professor at the at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and co-founder of write.law. Regalia鈥檚 company helps legal professionals to become better legal writers and at no cost to law students.

成人VR视频 Institute sat down with Regalia and , a legal innovation and technology expert and founder of (LLL), to discuss how law schools are well-position to help address the ATJ gap, while also preparing the next generation of lawyers to innovate with the mindsets and tools to serve those individuals who cannot afford legal services.

The 鈥渓ow-hanging fruit鈥� in law schools鈥� role, Regalia says, is combining the talent of their law students and technology at scale to increase accessibility to legal services for self-represented litigants (SRL). 鈥淏ecause law schools are in the business of training lawyers, and law professors have an enormous influence over law students and how they view their first job as attorneys, we can equip these students with the technology and innovation tools to scale ATJ tools,鈥� Regalia explains. For example, law students can use technology tools to create simple document forms that can guide SRLs through filling out a motion for a civil legal need.

Moreover, students learning these skills and having these key experiences in law school:

• • • will have the skills they need to continue serving those who cannot afford legal services on their own or through legal aid;
    • will be able to bring these transformations of legal services to public institutions in which they work; or
    • can demonstrate legal innovation and technology competencies to better drive efficiency in workflow at legal employers.

Indeed, expanding law school graduates鈥� innovation mindset and skill sets around technology will enable them to analyze how to perform legal services differently, teach them how to adjust their approach, and how to apply their skills in a fluid environment. All of which increases their scalability to adapt the delivery of legal services to meet ever-changing client needs now and in the future, Regalia adds.

Brown agrees, noting that the need is great. 鈥淩esearch continues to show that the one-to-one model of legal services continues to leave millions of Americans鈥� legal needs unaddressed,鈥� she says. 鈥淚nvesting in legal innovation and technology education is the only chance we have to disrupt that model and shrink the access to justice gap.鈥�

Fortunately, more law schools are establishing essential requirements for legal technology and innovation programs, Regalia observes, some of which include:

Client-focused solutions 鈥� Giving law students experience in analyzing processes by thinking about the end-in-mind helps to create client-centered solutions. For example, Regalia says he started one nonprofit to empower homeless individuals to be able to successfully navigate the justice system as a SRL in a civil dispute. The first step he had to understand was the challenges that homeless individuals faced as legal services consumers and analyze the problem through their eyes. One key challenge homeless individuals experienced was not knowing their rights in a dispute. As they work through the legal system, procedural roadblocks arose because they lacked the understanding of what document should be filed. Employing innovation frameworks into existing processes enables developers to create client-focused solutions while helping law students develop the mindset and mental agility to adapt.

Understanding how tech works 鈥� Law schools need to teach these frameworks to better understand how technology tools work rather than simply teaching how to use specific tech tools.

Teamwork across disciplines 鈥� Law students need to learn how to collaborate with individuals with different domain expertise (including technical expertise) to better assist in creating a viable solution to a client issue. 鈥淎 lot of these solutions work best if you get law students working with individuals in other disciplines who have different skill sets, like tech developers, computer scientists, and those from other disciplines to think about the business side of how we run teams,鈥� Regalia says. 鈥淟aw schools often sit in the best place to bring those stakeholders together.鈥�

Being exposed to technology, collaborating with individuals of varying areas of expertise, and envisioning end-user focused solutions can open up career options after law school. For example, Brown says she started in legal technology and innovation as soon as she graduated from law school and now runs her own company, which 鈥渇acilitates ATJ at scale through the use of technology, human-centered design, and operations principles.鈥�

Her interest was first piqued as a student practitioner at the community justice and litigation technology clinics, Brown notes. Upon graduation, she fine-tuned her skills and impact as an ABA innovation fellow in 2018 before establishing LLL in 2019. 鈥淚n my short time since law school, the work I鈥檝e done has impacted tens of thousands of Louisianans,鈥� Brown explains. 鈥淚mpact on this scale is simply not possible under traditional models of legal service delivery, so while sometimes difficult, this has been an extremely rewarding path.鈥�

Over the past 18 months, students from diverse backgrounds have borne witness, all too often, to a broken system of law enforcement amid a global pandemic, race-based hate crimes, and the continuing dehumanization of undocumented persons and refugees 鈥� all of which have put a spotlight on the stark inequities in our legal system that disproportionately impact communities of color.

As a result, students of color began applying to law schools in droves to address these problematic areas that, in many cases, affect them and their families quite personally. Those law schools that take these issues seriously, that address them privately and publicly, and that adapt policies and curricula to take these areas of concern into account will, undoubtedly, set themselves ahead.

In the past few years, there has been a rise in the kind of programming offered by law schools intended to support students from underserved and underrepresented backgrounds. While these students are fully capable of going far in their careers, they may have had limited access to key information and opportunities which may have benefited their more privileged peers. Additionally, many law firms have been proactive in creating mentorship programs for students to learn more about the actual practice of law to better close these information and opportunity gaps.

With these increased investments, students are able to build self-confidence and experience a more meaningful chance to thrive academically in law school and succeed in earning summer associate positions. To continue this trend, partnership across the legal community is at the core of expanding career opportunities to law students of color. Key proposals to enhance support for students of color during the pandemic and beyond are discussed below.

Increase internships targeting law students of color

Experience while in law school is imperative, and while these investments are not new, there is a need to expand access to key legal experience through internships. With the onset of the pandemic, it is easier to increase access because of the ability to offer internships virtually. To demonstrate, (SEO), an education nonprofit dedicated to increasing representation of students from underserved and underrepresented communities in business and law, worked closely with law firms to maximize the number of internship opportunities available and offer guidance on how to engage students during the virtual summer program.

Following a successful partnership with several firms in 2020, SEO helped increase internship opportunities at these firms by 50% in 2021, enabling its expansion across multiple markets, including Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, while expanding into a new market in Miami.

Expand usage of digital tools for learning and networking

The wide adoption of expanded technology tools during the pandemic and the fact that Gen-Z law students were born after widespread usage of the internet in the late 1990s make the increased use of digital tools for career experience programs and learning a necessity. One of the key reasons SEO was successful in boosting its offerings to more students across more cities was cost effectiveness and scalability in the use of digital work tools. For example, it transitioned its annual Career Conference to an online format using the platform Hopin, which resulted in four times as many attendees than when the event was held in-person.

SEO also expanded its use of Zoom, which its Law Program had adopted prior to the pandemic in 2017, to include rounds of networking rotations through breakout rooms and a variety of different types of meetings, formats, and group sizes to keep the experience stimulating.

Provide assistance with law school admissions

Another opportunity to extend support to potential law students of color and to continue the trend of increased enrollment in law schools is by addressing the barriers that students face during the application cycle. For example, SEO launched a new program, Catalyst, with the support of its partner law firms, to provide students from underrepresented backgrounds a cohort-based LSAT course, admissions workshops and private admissions counseling, personalized conversations with admissions officers, and attorney mentorship through its Catalyst-sponsoring firms, including , , , and .

Offer services to maintain student well-being

Throughout educational, networking, and internship opportunities, placing significant emphasis on mental health and wellbeing is a must. Indeed, holding sessions regularly to provide students with a chance to reflect on their experiences on their own and with each other helps to open up these conversations and reinforces vulnerability and empathy, key skills needed for today鈥檚 lawyers.

Partnerships like those that SEO has developed with other legal community organizations are needed and easier to deliver more than ever. Moving forward, these partnerships for students of color are likely to look different than they did pre-pandemic because of the normalization of hybrid and remote offerings to expand the reach to as many students as possible. In fact, SEO has also launched new programs recently as part of its Leadership Institute to provide ongoing development to alumni, customized for each stage of their career, as well as the SEO Tech Developer, which propels Black, Hispanic, and Native American computer science and engineering college students to the next level of technical and problem-solving skills.

Collaboration among legal community institutions is critical to the ongoing delivery of high-impact programs to close the national educational and career opportunity gap for those participants who have been historically excluded and allowing them to gain access to economic capital and ascend to positions of influence and power.

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There are some real talent challenges in recruiting and retaining early-to-mid-career lawyers in government lawyer roles. Indeed, most of the lawyers in government service are seasoned, Boomer-generation attorneys and could begin retiring en masse soon.

When these attorneys begin retiring at an increasingly high rate, it will cause huge losses in institutional knowledge for many government agencies. Further, when today鈥檚 law students start their careers in government service, they will lose out on opportunities for mentorship and the transfer of institutional knowledge because of this situation.

成人VR视频鈥� research showed that less than one-quarter of law students have a preference for a government career. There is room to attract more students, however, as an additional 22% said they would at least consider a government job.

So, what are students looking for in their legal career? Two key factors that law students tend to focus on are work-life balance and earning potential, with those students who prioritize earning potential (16% of all law students) almost invariably going for a law firm position. On the other hand, students who prioritize work-life balance over earnings are often attracted to a government role.

Nevertheless, work-life balance in itself isn鈥檛 always enough to attract students to pursue a government career because other legal career options 鈥� such as in-house counsel, solo practitioners, and attorneys who work at smaller law firms 鈥� also feature more work-life balance, often with greater earning potential than a government role.

Where a government career really stands out is in its ability to make a difference 鈥� two-thirds of law students who said they prefer a government position stated that this factor is what excites them most about their future career. Given the variety of public service roles, making a difference can mean helping individuals achieve justice, protecting the community through prosecutions, or at a broader level, creating a more just legal system.

The opportunity to serve and transform local communities are huge drivers for lawyers in public service, no matter at what stage they are in in their careers, and this is likely to remain. 鈥淲hat is quite special about my area of practice [as a public sector lawyer] is that I get to play a part in transforming communities and making a difference,鈥� said Rachel McKoy, Head of Commercial and Contracts at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Attracting more student to government service

To attract more law students, governments agencies may want to employ the following creative options:

Double down on the 鈥渇inding meaningful work鈥� factor 鈥� Public employers need to stress this concept in their marketing materials and in their efforts with their hiring pipelines. Including such lures as quotes from early career lawyers or having younger government lawyers share why their job is important in recruitment material can go a long way to increase an agency鈥檚 attraction for law students.

Offer 鈥減art time鈥� work for apprenticeship 鈥� Allowing soon-to-be retiring lawyers the alternative to finish out their final year of service with mentorship or bringing back retired lawyers part-time for the sole purpose of mentoring junior lawyers gives both the outgoing seasoned lawyers and their incoming replacements a sense of continuity that can help pass on valuable institutional knowledge. This way also fulfills seasoned lawyers鈥� desire to leave the organization better off than they when they joined.

Keep in touch with alumni 鈥� Many lawyers who select to serve in government cycle through with various chapters or departments within several government agencies. For example, , who retired as a deputy executive director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2020 stated that within FTC, 鈥渨e鈥檝e ingrained the idea that at some point you should leave鈥� go to work at a law firm or do something different, and then, come back to us to lead in some capacity.鈥�

Simply coming up with strategies and working with employees on what it would take to make the agency a better place to work was 鈥渁 continual and just monumental focus of our activities,鈥� Bak explained, adding that in fact, 鈥渢hat is an understatement.鈥�

Gina Jurva, Manager of the Corporates and Government enterprise content platform for 成人VR视频, and Lucy Leach, Technical Research Director at 成人VR视频 Acritas, both contributed to this article.