Winston
Churchill
once
said
about
Russia:
It
is
a
riddle
wrapped
in
a
mystery
inside
an
enigma.
I’m
starting
to
feel
the
same
way
about
training
young
lawyers
in
the
age
of
AI.
How
do
we,
as
a
profession,
train
law
students
and
young
lawyers
with
critical
skill
sets
and
thinking
ability
when
so
much
can
now
be
done
with
AI?
It’s
a
continuing
and
critical
question
and
our
thinking
needs
to
continually
evolve.
I
have
written
recently
about
some
conclusions
of
economist
Tyler
Cowen
about
AI
and
the
need
for
law
schools
to
play
a
greater
role
in
developing
GenAI
skills.
Cowen’s
conclusions
and
to
some
extent
mine
were
that
educational
institutions
like
law
schools
need
to
double
down
on
teaching
students
how
to
effectively
use
AI.
I
had
some
thoughts
on
the
Socratic
method
and
the
use
of
adjunct
practicing
lawyer
professors.
This
came
on
the
heels
of
another
article
I
did
bemoaning
the
apparent
lack
of
critical
thinking
skills
as
noted
by
several
law
librarians.
A
Nuanced
View
Now
perhaps
another
nuanced
view
from
an
actual
academician,
Clay
Shirky,
the
vice
provost
at
New
York
University.
Shirky
recently
wrote
a
guest
essay
for
the
New
York
Times
entitled,
Students
Hate
Them,
Universities
Need
Them.
The
Only
Real
Solution
to
the
AI
Cheating
Crisis.
Shirky
makes
the
point,
“Learning
is
a
change
in
long
term
memory:
that’s
the
biological
correlate
of
what
we
do
in
the
classroom.”
Similar
to
my
discussion
of
the
need
for
repetitive
type
work
to
allow
young
lawyers
to
begin
to
see
patterns
as
they
develop,
Shirky
says
educational
institutions
need
to
move
away
from
take-home
assignments
and
essays
and
more
toward
“in
class
blue
book
essays,
oral
examinations,
required
office
hours
and
other
assessments
that
call
on
students
to
demonstrate
knowledge
in
real
time.”
Shirky
debunks
the
notion
that
educational
institutions
can
simply
talk
to
students
about
how
AI
can
disrupt
their
learning
and
that
they
should
use
it
as
a
partner
to
help
them
learn.
The
truth,
says
Shirky
is
that
despite
all
the
talk
about
using
AI
to
facilitate
learning,
students
even
the
good
ones
were
mostly
taking
the
easy
way
out.
In
his
article,
he
says:
We
cannot
simply
redesign
our
assignments
to
prevent
lazy
A.I.
use.
(We’ve
tried.)
If
you
ask
students
to
use
A.I.
but
critique
what
it
spits
out,
they
can
generate
the
critique
with
A.I.
If
you
give
them
A.I.
tutors
trained
only
to
guide
them,
they
can
still
use
tools
that
just
supply
the
answers.
And
detectors
are
too
prone
to
false
accusations
of
cheating
and too
poor
at
catching
lightly
edited
output
for
professors
to
rely
on
them.
So
Shirky
thinks
institutions
need
to
go
back
to
in
class
work
and
oral
discussion
designed
to
show
that
students
have
learned
something.
And
to
move
away
from
exclusive
reliance
on
writing,
at
least
outside
a
controlled
classroom.
He
goes
on
to
say
that
not
many
professors
like
this.
And
not
many
students
do
either.
What’s
This
Mean
for
Law
Schools?
If
he
is
right,
this
of
course
has
implications
for
law
schools.
But
law
professors
should
have
one
advantage.
U.S.
law
schools
were
built
on
the
Socratic
method:
oral
question
and
answer
sessions
with
students
in
a
classroom
designed
to
get
at
their
knowledge.
At
least
that’s
the
ideal.
The
method,
if
used
correctly,
would
be
ideal
for
the
kind
of
learning
Shirky
is
talking
about.
Combined
with
other
teaching
methods
like
small
group
discussion,
problem
solving
without
the
use
of
AI
and
active
listening,
could
enhance
the
skills
lawyers
will
actually
need
in
the
AI
world.
But
here’s
the
rub.
Over
time,
law
professors
have
been
relying
less
and
less
on
the
Socratic
method
and
moving
to
the
type
of
large
group
lectures
Shirky
is
bemoaning.
The
emphasis
is
more
on
writing
and
open
book
examinations
that
may
indeed
demonstrate
some
skill
in
using
AI
but
not
much
else.
To
paraphrase
Shirky,
a
student
who
cuts
and
pastes
a
legal
research
paper
is
enrolled
in
a
cutting
and
pasting
class,
not
a
law
school
class.
As
one
commentator
put
it
in
a
Nebraska
Law
Journal
article
some
time
ago,
“the
traditional
Socratic
method
is
today
more
myth
than
reality
because
legal
pedagogy
has
changed
dramatically,
and
the
Socratic
method
still
common
during
the
1950s
and
1960s
is
nearly
extinct.”
It’s
Just
Too
Damned
Hard
Shirky
talks
about
the
reluctance
of
professors
to
do
what
he
outlines.
Why?
I
think
because
it’s
just
too
damned
hard.
Giving
the
same
lecture
year
in
and
year
out
is
easy.
Coming
up
with
penetrating
questions
using
the
Socratic
method
and
then
analyzing
the
student’s
answer
for
learning
purposes
isn’t
so
easy.
It
requires
work,
patience,
and
expertise.
You
have
to
ask
questions
that
draw
out
what
a
student
knows
and
how
they
approach
a
problem.
You
have
to
be
able
to
ask
follow-up
questions.
All
without
embarrassing
or
harassing
students
unduly.
Certainly,
when
I
was
in
law
school,
there
were
some
professors
who
were
better
at
it
than
others.
And
indeed,
some
used
it
as
a
form
of
hazing:
if
I
had
to
go
through
it,
so
do
you.
But
let’s
face
it,
when
you
practice
law,
you
are
going
to
get
hard
questions
from
judges,
clients,
and
your
adversaries.
When
the
Real
Training
Begins
And
the
learning
doesn’t
stop
when
you
graduate
from
law
school;
in
fact,
some
would
say
that’s
when
the
real
training
begins.
I
have
said
for
some
time
that
law
firms
need
to
get
serious
about
training.
That’s
even
more
critical
and
challenging
now.
If
Shirky
is
right,
firms
need
to
work
harder
on
mentorship
programs.
They
need
to
train
the
trainer:
senior
lawyers
need
to
learn
how
to
mentor
and
train.
They
need
more
hands-on
training
that
can’t
be
done
exclusively
with
AI.
But
Can
We?
But
all
that
takes
time.
Time
that
can’t
be
billed.
It
takes
investment
in
the
future
for
business
models
that
often
look
only
at
the
end-of-the-year
numbers
and
distribute
to
the
partners
every
drip
and
drop
of
profit.
I’m
not
sure
we
are
ready
for
that.
But
the
consequences
if
we
don’t
may
mean
we
end
up
with
a
profession
that’s
no
longer
a
profession
and
replaced
by
something
else
entirely.
Where
legal
services
are
primarily
provided
not
by
skilled
practitioners
but
by
AI
bots
and
robot
lawyers.
Stephen
Embry
is
a
lawyer,
speaker,
blogger,
and
writer.
He
publishes TechLaw
Crossroads,
a
blog
devoted
to
the
examination
of
the
tension
between
technology,
the
law,
and
the
practice
of
law.