In response to the tidal wave of generative AI news, we’ve compiled recent resources on generative AI use in law school and legal practice for faculty and staff. Given the rapid changes in this space, these resources will be regularly updated (last update – 12/7/23).
Other Berkeley Law generative AI information:
- Berkeley Law Generative AI Policy
- We’re collecting a broader group of resources in a Zotero group library; to access the attachments (the online library only includes metadata), email kchamorro@berkeley.edu.
Generative AI Has Arrived
Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that uses multi-layer neural networks to generate novel content, including text, prose, computer code, images, and video. Generative AI tools that have been trained on massive amounts of text data to produce human-like text and answers, such as ChatGPT, are referred to as large language models (LLMs).
The November 2022 public release of ChatGPT ushered in a new AI era that has been described as a Promethean moment and a “tipping point for AI”. ChatGPT, which now has an estimated 100 million weekly users, set off a race among tech giants to jump in with similar technologies, including Bard and Duet AI (Google), CoPilot/Bing (Microsoft, powered by ChatGPT), Claude (Anthropic), Llama 2 (Meta), Grok (xAI), and Q (Amazon).
Generative AI Basics
- How AI Chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard Work – Visual Explainer, The Guardian, 11/1/23
- An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence for Federal Judges (9/23) (great overview of AI terms and current issues)
- AI Terms for Legal Professionals, Lexis Insights, 3/20/23
Generative AI in Higher Education
- ChatGPT Has Entered the Classroom: How LLMs Could Transform Education, Nature, 11/14/23
- Evaluating LLMs is a Minefield, Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapor, Princeton University, 10/4/23 (annotated slides from a launch event for Princeton Language and Intelligence, a new initiative to strengthen LLM expertise in academia)
- GPT, Large Language Models, and the Trough of Disillusionment, The Scholarly Kitchen, 10/4/23
- Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools (resource created by Lance Eaton for the purposes of sharing and helping other instructors see the range of Gen AI policies)
- AI in Education Group Meeting Notes & Resources (resource created by Daniel Stanford)
- Teaching with AI, OpenAI blog, 8/31/23
- Wharton School: Practical AI for Teachers and Students (5 part video series; updated on 8/5/23; related paper here)
- HeinOnline in the Classroom: AI and ChatGPT, HeinOnline Blog, 7/21/23
- Don’t Use A.I. to Cheat in School. It’s Better for Studying, NYT, 6/30/23
Generative AI in Law School
- Generative AI, Having Already Passed the Bar Exam, Now Passes the Legal Ethics Exam LawSites, 11/16/23
- Thoughts on Promises and Challenges of AI in Legal after Yesterday’s AI Summit at Harvard Law School, Bob Ambrogi, LawSites, 9/20/23
- Law Schools Explore AI Integration Amid Industry Transformation, JDJournal, 8/11/23
- Is Resistance to AI in the Law School Classroom Futile?, Michael C. Dorf, Verdict, 7/19/23
- What Does Chat GPT Mean for Us?, Penn Carey Law presentation, 3/24/23 (ChatGPT demos, discussion of how LLMs can be used in law school and legal practice)
- Sample Exercises and Documents for Using Generative AI in the Classroom (Dyane O’Leary, Suffolk University Law School, 6/27/23 Lexis presentation)
- AI Tools for Lawyers: A Practical Guide, 108 Minnesota Law Review (forthcoming, 2023), last revised 6/23/23 (covers both law school & legal practice)
- Tammy Pettinato Oltz, ChatGPT, Professor of Law, 2023 U. Ill. J.L. Tech. & Pol’y 207 (2023)
- Jonathan Choi et al., ChatGPT Goes to Law School, 71 Journal of Legal Education (2022)
Exams
- These Law Students Got to Use AI on Final Exams. How’d They Do?, Reuters, 8/29/23
- Margaret Ryznar, Exams in the Time of ChatGPT, 80 Wash. and Lee L.R. Online 305, 3/28/23
- Stephen Dobson, Why Universities Should Return to Oral Exams in the AI and ChatGPT era, The Conversation, 4/19/23
AI Detection Tools
- OpenAI Confirms That AI Writing Detectors Don’t Work, Ars Technica, 9/8/23
- Evaluating the Effectiveness of Turnitin’s AI Writing Indicator Model, Temple University, Center for the Advancement of Teaching, 9/23.
- OpenAI Can’t Tell If Something Was Written by AI After All, The Verge, 7/25/2023
- Detecting AI, Brainyacts #74, 5/20/23 (comparison of 10 AI detection tools)
- Geoffrey A. Fowler, We tested a new ChatGPT-detector for teachers. It flagged an innocent student. The Washington Post (Online), 4/1/23
Legal Research & Writing
- AI Improves Legal Writing Speed, Not Quality – Study, Reuters, 11/8/23
- From Books To Bytes: A Legal Research Showdown In The Age Of AI, Above the Law, 9/18/23
- The Truth About Hallucinations in Legal Research AI: How to Avoid Them and Trust Your Sources, AI Law Librarians, Al Law Librarians, 9/14/23
- David S. Kemp, Abandoning Precedent: The Case for Bringing ChatGPT into Law Schools, 8/25/23
- Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT to Teach Legal Research and Writing 109 A.B.A. J. 38 (2023).
- Harrington, Sean, The Case for Large Language Model Optimism in Legal Research from a Law & Technology Librarian, 6/26/23
- Critically Evaluating Legal Information with ChatGPT, AALS Technology Law Summer Webinar Series (recording), 5/24/23
- How ChatGPT and Generative AI Impact Legal Writing and Research Courses, Association of Legal Writing Directors (recording), 2/17/23
- Joseph Regalia, ChatGPT and Legal Writing: The Perfect Union?, 2/22/23
Legal Scholarship
- Jonathan H. Choi, How to Use Large Language Models for Empirical Legal Research, J. Inst. & Theoretical Econ. (forthcoming 2023)
- ‘We’re All Using It’: Publishing Decisions Are Increasingly Aided by AI. That’s Not Always Obvious, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/27/23
- Generative AI, ChatGPT, and Google Bard: Evaluating the Impact and Opportunities for Scholarly Publishing, The Scholarly Kitchen, 8/17/23
- Generative AI, The Scholarly Kitchen, 7/20/23 (As of June 2023, many publishers including Wiley, Elsevier, and Springer Nature have amended their policies to explicitly ban ChatGPT as an article co-author)
Admissions
- We Submitted a ChatGPT-Written Law School Admissions Essay, The Recorder, 10/5/23
- Ban or Embrace? Colleges Wrestle With A.I.-Generated Admissions Essays, The New York Times (9/1/23)
- Law Schools Split on ChatGPT in Admissions Essays, Inside Higher Ed, 8/2/23
- Arizona State Law School Embraces AI in Applications, JDJournal, 7/31/23
- Use of ChatGPT Prohibited on Michigan Law School Applications, Reuters, 7/20/23
Legal Research platforms
- Lexis – Lexis + AI
- Lexis+ AI is now available to Lexis+ AI Insider participants, librarians, and professors teaching legal research, writing, and legal technologies; email kchamorro@berkeley.edu if you have questions.
- Lexis+ AI Faculty Resources Page
- Lexis+ AI Faculty Training (30 min video; 11/23)
- LexisNexis Rolls Out Lexis+ AI for General Availability, Promising Hallucination-Free Answers to Legal Questions, LawSites, 10/25/23
- Lexis+ AI is now available to Lexis+ AI Insider participants, librarians, and professors teaching legal research, writing, and legal technologies; email kchamorro@berkeley.edu if you have questions.
- Westlaw – AI @ Thomson Reuters
- Major Thomson Reuters News: Westlaw Gets Generative AI Research Plus Integration with Casetext CoCounsel; Gen AI Coming Soon to Practical Law, LawSites, 11/15/23 (current prediction is that law schools will not get access until mid-2024)
- Artificial Intelligence Toolkit (Practical Law resource)
- Co-Counsel from Casetext
- September 18 update (blog post)
Other AI Tools To Keep an Eye On
- Claude 2 (Claude 2 can analyze up to 75,000 words uploaded from PDF, TXT, or CSV files; users can limit Claude to answering queries based on a closed universe of uploaded documents)
- Humata.AI (allows upload of documents; answers questions and shows highlights directly inside the source material)
Generative AI in Legal Practice
- In First for A U.S. Appeals Court, 5th U.S. Circuit Court Considers Rule Requiring Lawyers to Certify They Did Not Rely on AI to Create Filings, LawSites, 11/29/23
- California Bar Passes Disclosure and Billing Guidelines for AI, Bloomberg Law, 11/16/23
- The New Frontier: Panel of Special Advisors for the ABA Task Force on Law and AI, ABA Presidential Speaker Series, 11/7/23 (video)
- “They’re Not Cheap”: Law Firm CIOs On Generative AI Tools, Law360 Pulse (10/17/23)
- Tracking Generative AI: How Evolving AI Models Are Impacting Legal, Legaltech News, 10/12/23 (running compilation)
- Major Law Firms Form Consortium to Develop AI Training through SkillBurst Interactive, LawSites, 10/3/23
- David A. Hoffman & Yonathan A. Arbel, Generative Interpretation, N.Y.U. L. Rev., Vol. 99, 2024 (8/14/23 preprint) (how LLMs can help resolve ambiguous contract phrases)
- Task Force on Responsible Use of Generative AI for Law, law.MIT.ed/AI, 6/2/23
- Generative AI Could Radically Alter the Practice of Law, The Economist, 6/6/23
- What Does Generative AI Mean for the Justice System? (Part 1), GovTech, 7/28/23
- Benjamin Weiser, Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT, The New York Times, 5/27/23
Other Noteworthy Generative AI News
- Altman Was Out, Until He Wasn’t: Legal Tech Reacts to OpenAI’s Leadership Shuffle, The Recorder, 11/22/23.
- ChatGPT is no Longer as Clueless about Recent Events, ZDNET, 11/7/23 (cutoff date for GPT-3.5 is now January 2022 and GPT-4 Turbo is April 2023)
Other Resources
Newsletters/Blogs
- LawSites, Bob Ambrogi (while not focused on just AI, Ambrogi is a leading voice in legal tech)
- Brainyacts Generative AI Newsletter, Josh Kubicki (University of Richmond School of Law) (daily blog on AI in law school and legal practice, with examples and news highlights)
- AI Snake Oil, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor (“what makes AI click, what makes it fail, and how to tell he difference”)
- SAIL: Sensemaking AI Learning (“explores trends in human and artificial cognition, focusing on how sensemaking and learning are impacted by AI”)
Webinars/Presentations
- The New AI: The Legal and Ethical Implications of ChatGPT and Other Emerging Technologies, presented by the Fordham Law Review and the Neuroscience and Law Center, 11/3/23 (virtual & in-person; registration)
- AI for Attorneys: ChatGPT and Beyond, Bob Ambrogi & Jordan Turk (presented by Smokeball), 8/10/23
- Real Talk Beyond ChatGPT: What Recent AI Advances Mean for Legal, ALM/Law.Com, 3/15/23 (webinar recording)
- Computational Law & Generative AI – Generative AI in the Legal World, Dazza Greenwood, founder of law.MIT.edu, 4/19/23 presentation at Berkeley Law
Podcasts
- Cat Moon and Mark Williams Launch the New Vanderbilt AI Law Lab (VAILL), 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, 11/14/23
- How and Why Davis Wright Built Its Own GenAI Chatbot, Legal Speak, 9/15/23
- The Story Behind Gunderson Dettmer’s Launch of ChatGD, Its ‘Homegrown’ Generative AI, Bob Ambrogi, LawNext, 8/17/23
- Suspicion, Cheating and Bans: A.I. Hits America’s Schools, The Daily, 6/28/23
- Michael Bommarito on Preparing Law Students for the Future, and His Quest on Bringing O