AI transformation in the legal sector begins in law schools

The legal profession accounts for approximately 20 million jobs worldwide, including 12 million lawyers, around 4 million paralegals, and 4 million operational and administrative workers. Additionally, it involves another 14 million jobs within its broader ecosystem, encompassing notaries, translators, and other related professionals.

Law, like many other professions, is undergoing a major transformation with the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Law firms use both open AI tools and specialized platforms tailored for legal services. Specialist tools provide precision, real-time updates, and legal-specific functionalities that generic AI tools do not.

A recent survey found that out of 333 respondents, 210 law firms reported using AI in their operations. Larger firms are leading this shift: among firms with over 500 lawyers, 100% reported AI integration, whereas smaller firms (those with 1–100 lawyers) showed a much lower adoption rate, with 68% not yet using AI. AI use is most prevalent in Europe (including the UK) and the US, as well as among firms operating in multiple jurisdictions.

The report identifies several primary challenges associated with AI implementation in the legal profession:

1. Developing AI policies and governance frameworks to foster trust, mitigate risks, and ensure compliance.
2. Rigorous testing and ongoing assessment of AI tools before and during their deployment.
3. Training lawyers and administrative staff to effectively integrate AI into their workflows.
4. Addressing client concerns regarding the use of data for AI training.
5. Ensuring compliance with legal and ethical obligations.

The speed of AI adoption in the legal sector varies, leading to disparities in legal service quality and access to justice. However, legal education institutions cannot afford to wait for all these challenges to be resolved—they must actively contribute to shaping the future of AI in the profession.

Legal education and AI

While law firms and legal departments are rapidly integrating AI, many law schools have been slow to adapt. Some AI tools are not even accessible to academic institutions yet, creating a gap between legal training and professional realities.

For legal education to evolve and prepare students for an AI-intensive profession where many tasks will be automated, law schools can integrate AI at three different levels:

1. Content: Adding courses on AI ethics and regulation in different regions is important, but it is only the first step—law curricula need to be completely overhauled to align with an increasingly AI-driven profession.

   They must also be analyzed to determine how each legal discipline will be impacted by AI. Constitutional law, for instance, will not be affected in the same ways as commercial and labor law.

2. Methodology: Teaching staff must make deliberate choices about when students are allowed to use AI tools or not. They should also design debates and assignments in the knowledge that students will likely use AI in the way legal professionals increasingly do. Both faculty and students should use AI to make learning more efficient (more accurate feedback, research, and so on), and treat it as an ally rather than an adversary.
3. Skills: Far from just learning statutes and codes by rote, legal education is about developing students’ skills. AI should be a tool that enhances legal analysis, and its proper use should strengthen students’ ability to evaluate different perspectives, construct rigorous arguments, and make well-founded decisions.

   The case method has traditionally been used by many law schools around the world to make students “think like a lawyer.” It is time to review this methodology, which was first implemented by Professor Langdell at Harvard Law School in 1870.

Law schools must become centers of innovation, equipping students not only to work with AI but to lead its ethical and responsible implementation in the legal profession.

Balancing AI with human expertise

AI will not replace lawyers, but it will change the nature of legal work, requiring professionals who can navigate new types of transactions, regulatory landscapes, and legal conflicts.

As society becomes more complex and unpredictable, legal expertise will be in higher demand. A society increasingly driven by AI and automation will probably need more—not fewer—lawyers to interpret and shape the evolving legal framework. However, to fully realize AI’s potential for accessibility and efficiency in the legal profession, universities must redesign their curricula to ensure future lawyers can use these technologies ethically and effectively.

The greatest challenge for legal education today is striking a balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and preserving the core skills that define legal expertise. Law schools must take proactive steps to ensure that future lawyers are not only AI-savvy, but also capable of critical judgment and ethical decision-making. The future of legal education—and indeed the legal profession itself—depends on how well this balance is achieved.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.