An AI Syllabus Statement for a Legal Research Course
Daniel Radthorne is a research librarian at the UVA School of Law. He teaches an advanced legal research course, and his AI syllabus statement reflects the ways that AI is changing the field of legal research.
Generative AI:
There are strong indications that generative AI (“GenAI”) technology is becoming an important component of the legal research process. My goal is to prepare you for a practice environment where lawyers are beginning to use tools such as ChatGPT, CoCounsel, Protégé, and Harvey for traditional legal work.
We will discuss the benefits and risks of using GenAI for this purpose, including best practices for leveraging the technology effectively. However, please remember that the capabilities of these resources remain in flux, and their responses may be incorrect in ways that are not immediately obvious.
Even when generative AI functionality becomes better established, it will still be your ethical obligation as a licensed practitioner to ensure that the material generated by these tools is correct. Doing so will require a broad understanding of the infrastructure of American law and jurisprudence – knowledge you must build organically through our coursework.
As such, our use of GenAI tools will be limited and specific. You will have the option of using GenAI for certain assignments, but you will be instructed when, where, and how these tools can be used in each instance. Outside of these prescribed circumstances, please do not use generative AI tools derived from large language models (e.g., ChatGPT, CoCounsel, Protégé, Copilot, etc.) when completing assignments for this course.
Revisions to your own written answers from dedicated editing tools (like Grammarly) are permissible as long as 90% of the words in the final submission are your own. It is also acceptable to use the “AI Overview” provided at the top of Google search results to locate potentially relevant websites, but be sure to note that you did so in your answer.
If you have questions about what constitutes an appropriate use of GenAI, reach out to me directly. For assignments where GenAI tools are permitted, please keep in mind that the Law School’s rules concerning plagiarism apply equally to the outputs of AI programs.
