In law, it is so easy to get swept in the daily grind and forget the bigger picture. But with so much happening, it is crucial to look up and consider what the future of legal education should look like (among other things).
In the past couple of months, I have been experimenting with various futuring techniques that let legal professionals reimagine the future of the industry in a collaborative, low-stakes environment, away from their desks.
The below is a deep dive on one of these experiments: a futuring workshop titled “The future of legal education in the context of artificial intelligence” that I hosted it at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in January 2025.
This case study consists of two main parts – feel free to use the links below to jump to the respective sections.
The process: futuring workshop at a law school
The workshop was two hours long on a standalone basis without any previous contact within the group.
Its key theme was that junior lawyers currently learn a lot of the key legal skills by osmosis in law firms, doing exactly those kinds of repetitive tasks that Generative AI is fit to tackle.
The goal of the workshop was to explore the possibilities of what legal education could look like if / when that happens, and set the course for constructive work on legal education for the future.
Key moments
Generative AI in the work of junior lawyers
We kicked off with a round of introductions to set the tone and get to know the participants.
I followed with a quick segment with some of the theoretical and practical implications of the current state of Generative AI on entry-level legal tasks, such as summarizing judgments or drafting simple legal documentation. It covered the bare technical minimum, and served primarily to establish a common baseline around this assumption that we intended to disect.
Assessing the broad impact of GenAI on entry-level legal tasks
We continued with one of my favorite futuring exercises: Futures Wheel. The participants examined the key assumption – that AI will replace the junior lawyers’ work – and its first, second, and third degree implications.
This meant talking about the impact on the legal jobs market, structuring of law firm roles, the need for new technical skills and more.
Ideating and sharing a vision for the future
With the extent of the challenge and its impact mapped out, the participants set on to ideate potential approaches in groups of three.
Some groups explored more system-level interventions, such as shortening the length of the studies and injecting more multidisciplinarity. Other teams focused on smaller interventions, such as productive AI use in classrooms or practical skills training.
Afterwards, the teams shared their scenarios and put them to a discussion within the group.
During this debate, I observed and captured the possible principles of legal education of the future in a form. I shared this at the end of the workshop, and the participants then asynchronously sorted each proposed principle by their perceived importance.
Principles for the Future of Legal Education
Based on the workshop, we have put together and prioritised the following ten principles for the future of legal education:
- Legal education shall emphasise the ethics of AI
- Students shall learn to work with AI, including learning to work with and review AI outputs
- Legal education shall incorporate multidisciplinary elements
- Law students shall learn technological background
- Students shall have safe opportunities to experiment with new technologies
- Legal education shall be practically oriented
- Law school shall facilitate contacts with experts from different fields (e.g. IT, data science, and business)
- Legal education shall incorporate more generalist elements
- Legal education shall put an emphasis on humanity and intrapersonal contact
- Law school shall leverage AI in teaching
What do you think? Feel free to chip into the debate using this form.
This is a work in progress that I plan to further streamline to make these into a truly actionable guide for law schools.
Each one of the principles could also be tackled by a ton of different initiatives. But it is a start and a North Star to aim for.
Reflect
The workshop once again underscored how valuable it is to step back and think about the bigger picture.
I am only beginning to scratch the surface of the potential of futuring in the legal industry. But thanks to the constant use of these methods, I am getting thoroughly convinced of their effectiveness in gathering stakeholder input, facilitating change management, and formulating some of the principles and visions for the future.
We were very lucky to have a diverse group of participants, consisting of students, academics from law and legal English, legal ops professional, in-house lawyer, and practicing lawyers. The different perspectives helped so much in shaping well-rounded visions.
In terms of the workshop itself, I could imagine it standalone or even being a part of a larger series, where participants first receive more context on artificial intelligence and practical training, and then follow with the bigger picture perspective.
Last but not least, I was personally very happy that the feedback from the participants was incredibly positive.
Final provisions
How do you see the future of legal education? Feel free to let me know your vision in the comments.
If you are reading this and thinking that such workshop could be also valuable at your law school or organization, do not hesitate to reach out.
Baru
A huge thank you to the participants who made this a very enjoyable experience in an atmosphere of curiosity. And as always, none of this work would be possible without the kind and open-minded support and mentorship of the head of the legal skills department, JUDr. Mgr. Michal Urban , Ph.D.
