The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into legal education has attracted a lot of interest in recent years, so much so that ChatGPT could become a new law professor handling basic administrative as well as educational tasks.
The experiment was conducted by Tammy Pettinato Oltz, a law professor at the University of North Dakota, who created an imaginary faculty member with a tough but typical week of teaching and service-related tasks. Remarkably, ChatGPT managed to produce drafts for six of seven assigned tasks in just 23 minutes, demonstrating her ability to handle routine academic tasks efficiently.
Some examples
The "ChatGPT teacher" was able to draft a letter of recommendation for a student. OpenAI's generative AI developed a draft that highlighted the student's academic prowess and legal analytical skills, requiring only minor customization by the professor. A demonstration of how useful the tool can be in saving time.
For keynote speeches at a legal symposium, ChatGPT crafted a speech addressing the issue of implicit bias within the legal profession, providing a solid foundation that required only additional personal anecdotes and localized data to complete.
The most notable assignment was curriculum design because she was able to assist the academic team in developing a new curriculum for a course on Legal Practice Technology. AI suggested comprehensive content that included modern legal technologies, showing its potential to assist in curriculum development.
These cases underscore the usefulness of AI in reducing the workload of legal educators, allowing them to allocate more time to other critical areas such as pedagogy and in-depth research.
Among critics and university norms, the academic community is urged to establish clear guidelines and standards so as not to compromise ethical standards whereby limits need to be set on the role of AI in the generation of academic content. The balance of technology and human input will encourage AI to serve as an enhancer rather than a substitute.