TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing law students in a GenAI world to create knowledgeable future lawyers
AU - Head, Amanda
AU - Willis, Sonya
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2024. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Assessing law students has always been a challenging task, but the introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, compounds the problems already caused by increased student numbers, contract cheating and budget cuts in universities. As GenAI rapidly develops, legal educators must find ways to accommodate, and even incorporate, GenAI into their curricula and assessments so that law graduates can understand its capabilities and limitations within legal practice. Simultaneously, many jurisdictions, including Australia, have legislative obligations to deliver law graduates who satisfy legal knowledge-based “eligibility” requirements for admission into practice. This article introduces a knowledge framework for managing GenAI in legal education consisting of three pillars: Substantive Legal Knowledge, GenAI Ethics Knowledge, and GenAI System Knowledge. The authors argue this framework can assist legal educators in designing optimal assessments in an AI-disrupted world. The article employs the knowledge framework to examine the experiences and views of Australian law students’ engagement with GenAI outputs in completing a compulsory legal ethics assessment in 2023. This empirical case study demonstrates that effective assessment design incorporating GenAI can enhance law student and graduate outcomes despite the ongoing challenges for legal educators and the profession associated with GenAI.
AB - Assessing law students has always been a challenging task, but the introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, compounds the problems already caused by increased student numbers, contract cheating and budget cuts in universities. As GenAI rapidly develops, legal educators must find ways to accommodate, and even incorporate, GenAI into their curricula and assessments so that law graduates can understand its capabilities and limitations within legal practice. Simultaneously, many jurisdictions, including Australia, have legislative obligations to deliver law graduates who satisfy legal knowledge-based “eligibility” requirements for admission into practice. This article introduces a knowledge framework for managing GenAI in legal education consisting of three pillars: Substantive Legal Knowledge, GenAI Ethics Knowledge, and GenAI System Knowledge. The authors argue this framework can assist legal educators in designing optimal assessments in an AI-disrupted world. The article employs the knowledge framework to examine the experiences and views of Australian law students’ engagement with GenAI outputs in completing a compulsory legal ethics assessment in 2023. This empirical case study demonstrates that effective assessment design incorporating GenAI can enhance law student and graduate outcomes despite the ongoing challenges for legal educators and the profession associated with GenAI.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85198970942&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09695958.2024.2379785
DO - 10.1080/09695958.2024.2379785
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85198970942
SN - 0969-5958
VL - 31
SP - 293
EP - 310
JO - International Journal of the Legal Profession
JF - International Journal of the Legal Profession
IS - 3
ER -