I think this plan is really quite well-balanced and sane. Also kudos to UChicago Law School for including an actual implementation plan here, not just vague thoughts.
Some bits I found interesting:
[For required courses in year 1]
> Across all 1L sections, we will prohibit the use of electronic devices such as laptops, tablets, and phones in the classroom.
> Additionally, examinations will be in-class without access to the internet, electronic files, or apps. And most of all, we will continue our longstanding tradition of emphasizing the Socratic Method as part of these courses.
> Throughout the year, students will write without AI, while also using AI for research, revision, iterating on drafts, and preparation for oral argument. Students and their instructors will review together both their writing and their use of AI.
> For these courses, the use of the Socratic Method, no-device policies, and in-class, no-access exams will remain, but as default rules rather than required policies.
> In all elective courses, we will encourage instructors to experiment with pedagogy.
> We will be adding one additional requirement, which is that all students will be required to engage in an oral discussion of their SRP with their supervising professor, in an in-person setting.
These are the right bits to call out.
But the effect is to make success more dependent on networks. (If they are using AI as an excuse to make networks more relevant than skills, it relieves competitive pressure.)
First, a main draw of law journals is the filing cabinet of past exams as remembered by past students, available only to journal members i.e., friends of connected people. Reducing one's ability to remember what was in a lecture only increases the advantage insiders have.
Second, the "Socratic" Method for teaching law is nothing like it is in philosophy; it's more of a weird combination of hide-the-ball and distraction that again ensures people who can see through the clouds are using out-of-band information, and share it only with those they seek to enlist or join.
> all students will be required to engage in an oral discussion of their SRP with their supervising professor, in an in-person setting
I'm surprised anyone could get through otherwise. When did it become legitimate to dump your paper and not answer for it?
> Second, the "Socratic" Method for teaching law is nothing like it is in philosophy; it's more of a weird combination of hide-the-ball and distraction that again ensures people who can see through the clouds are using out-of-band information, and share it only with those they seek to enlist
How so? In my view, the socratic method is one of the few useful parts of law school. Most people, even quite smart people, think in a fuzzy way. Their ideas can seem superficially compelling in written form, but often fall apart when you start questioning their assumptions and chain of logical reasoning.
The biggest problem is that most law schools don’t use socratic method, because it’s a lot of work for teachers. Just cold calling a student and asking them to explain what happened in a case isn’t socratic method.
So, I graduated from law school 20 years ago, and -- given even the internet THEN, like, pdfs over mail -- that law journal filing cabinet thing was actually already dying; I had more than enough past history of outlines and stuff.
That all being said, I would be entirely unsurprised if the "mythology" of "YES the journals have the secret fancy sauce that no one else can get" lived on.
Also -- and I don't necessarily want to denigrate law school professors, it's another thing that's just gone on so long that "this is how we do it" -- yes, the law School "Socratic method" (at worst) is an effective form of possible professor laziness; they can just "ask questions about the cases" and not really teach.
Related to how law school "textbooks" aren't textbooks. They're literally just a bunch of cases slapped together with a tiny bit of commentary (unless that's maybe changed too, I hope?)
Again, not all professors, you CAN still teach very well under this framework. -- but it is an out for those fancy people who's forte isn't teaching.
All nice and all, but their grads will be wrecked by a street-wise guy with AI glasses (and eventually an implanted chip). There’s no competition in a machines vs humans match. It’s over. Of course these elite centers of knowledge want to keep the status quo, they base their entire existence on gate-keeping useful shit from the riff-raff. Well, fuck them.
Why would anyone hire an implanted chip that requires life support instead of just using the AI without the human middleman?
Because if you can just use AI, Law becomes accessible to both the rich and the poor.
A street wise moron used as a sort of meat puppet to carry a computer around that answers questions for him? What does that even mean practically? Won’t the graduates who learned how to think also have access, but then also be able to think for themselves too?
I think the real question here is: if you are smart and can find the resources to "learn how to think", and if a "smart guy with access to AI tools" can perform as well as any other trained lawyer, then what is the point of going to a competitive school in the first place?
You can't become "smart" just like that and "learn to think". It takes years od dedicated effort to reach that stage. Getting into a competitive school takes just that - years of dedicated effort.
> "smart guy with access to AI tools" can perform as well as any other trained lawyer
You are seriously understating the ability of a trained lawyer and overstating the ability AI tools.
No, I am not saying that a smart person will outperform a trained lawyer because of the AI tools.
What I am saying is that going to schools no longer is the only way for smart people to be able to do the job of a lawyer.
Going to school was never the only way for smart people to be able to do the job of a lawyer. Law is like consulting and finance in that the “school” part is mostly filtering and socialization and signaling. The actual education is maybe like 1 year of the three years people spend in law school.
AFAIK you can only practice law if you actually went to a school. So there is that...
But maybe I was too subtle in my previous comment. I absolutely agree with you. What I am trying to say is that these schools trying to come up with policies about tests and applications in the age of AI have nothing to do with education. They are all just grasping at whatever straws to try to keep the idea that their institutions are somehow special.
You’re generally correct, but you can become a lawyer without going to law school in 4 states. But this is a relatively modern requirement. ABA lobbying encouraged the policy in 1920 and most states adopted it by the 1940s and 1950s.