Assessing law students in a GenAI world to create knowledgeable future lawyers

Amanda Head*, Sonya Willis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
13 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)293-310
Number of pages18
JournalInternational Journal of the Legal Profession
Volume31
Issue number3
Early online date19 Jul 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

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.

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