Legal Education Commons^™

Gamification: The Viability Of Using Genai To Create Games To Teach Legal Concepts, Nicole Belbin

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines whether generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can lower the technical, time, and cost barriers that have limited the use of game-based learning (GBL) in legal education. It first considers the science of learning, focusing on spaced practice, retrieval practice, and concrete examples, and explains how GBL can incorporate these strategies. It then evaluates four general-purpose GenAI tools—Perplexity, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude—by testing their ability to state legal rules accurately and create games that teach personal jurisdiction.

The results demonstrate both GenAI’s promise and its limitations. Although all four tools incorporated core concepts of general jurisdiction, each omitted at …

Performing Democracy, Carliss N. Chatman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

American universities are frequently portrayed as stewards of democracy—sites where dissent is protected, truth is pursued, and diversity is championed. Yet these institutions often betray these ideals, especially under the pressures of donor influence, reputational risk, and political retrenchment. This Essay interrogates the internal contradictions of the university by centering one of its most guarded rituals: faculty hiring. Building on my 2021 article The Soft Shoe and Shuffle of Law School Hiring Committee Practices, I argue that hiring serves as both a performance of inclusion and a mechanism for preserving institutional whiteness, elite networks, and gatekeeping norms. I extend …

My Negotiation Chatbot Toby And Pedagogical Governance, Renee Henson

Faculty Publications

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots is exploding. Adolescents increasingly prefer interactions with AI companions over peers. Adults rely on these systems for health planning, therapy, administrative assistance, nutrition guidance, and even simulated “romantic relationships.” Individuals and institutions are adopting AI tools at a pace that far exceeds the development of governance frameworks.

I developed Toby for use in my first-year Lawyering: Problem-Solving and Dispute Resolution (“Lawyering”) course to expose students to the dynamics of negotiating against an opposing counsel with a difficult personality—a type of adversary all too common in legal practice, yet difficult to prepare for. Toby …

Report On The 2025-26 Survey Of Applied Legal Education, David A. Santacroce, Robert R. Kuehn, June T. Tai, Sarah Boonin

Other Publications

This report summarizes the results of the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education’s (CSALE) 2025-26 Survey of Applied Legal Education. The 2025-26 CSALE Survey is CSALE’s seventh triennial survey of law clinic and field placement (i.e., externship) courses and educators. The results provide insight into the state of experiential legal education in areas like program design, capacity, administration, funding, and pedagogy, and the role of clinic and field placement educators in the legal academy. Law schools, legal educators, scholars, and oversight agencies rely on CSALE’s data. The 2025-26 CSALE Survey is composed of two parts. A Survey of …

The Other Side Of The Glass Cliff, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Kellye Testy

Faculty Scholarship

First articulated by researchers Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam in 2005, the glass cliff theory posits that individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups in leadership, such as women and people of color, are more likely to obtain executive leadership positions during times of crisis, which means that such leaders take on their roles under conditions where they are more prone to fail. In this Essay, we focus on what we have termed “the other side of the glass cliff”: the intentional steps that women and people of color leaders in the legal academy have taken to build structures that …

Critical Analysis Of Legal Education: Faculty Perspectives Of Law School's Role In Producing Practice-Ready Graduates, Sophia M. Akel

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Legal education has long been the subject of harsh, widespread criticism due to concerns about its ability to adequately prepare students for legal practice. Newer attorneys have reported feeling incapable of performing even the most basic functions of their job after graduation from law school (Merritt & Cornett, 2020). Despite this troubling reality, law schools largely continue to function as they always have (Cramton, 1981). To gain insight directly from important figures in legal academia, this study examined law faculty perceptions on legal education’s role in producing practice-ready graduates. A mixed-methods survey design incorporating both quantitative descriptive and qualitative elements …

Professor Yvette Butler Named 2026 Recipient Of Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award, Maurer School Of Law - Indiana University

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor Yvette Butler has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Minority Groups announced late Friday (Dec. 12).

“Professor Butler’s commitment to advancing racial justice and elevating the voices of marginalized communities embodies the highest ideals of our profession,” said Indiana Law Dean Christiana Ochoa. “Her work reflects the courage, clarity of purpose, and unwavering advocacy that defined Derrick Bell’s legacy. We are immensely proud to see her recognized with this award and look forward to the continued impact …

Ben's Blog 1: What Would Benjamin Cardozo Do? (Wwcd): The Holiday Party Edition, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

The inaugural installment of Ben's Blog presents a fictional exchange inspired by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, applying his judicial philosophy to contemporary workplace holiday party issues. The blog explores employment law topics including workplace inclusion, alcohol policies, cannabis use, anti-harassment obligations, and employer liability in a lighthearted educational format.

Solving Professors' Dilemmas About Prohibiting Or Promoting Student Ai Use, John Lande

Faculty Publications

Faculty face difficult dilemmas as law students increasingly use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT.  Should faculty prohibit student use of AI in course work, allow it within limits, or actively encourage it to build professional skills?  Because students already use AI tools, faculty must respond.  Doing nothing can undermine core educational goals.

This article offers practical strategies for addressing these dilemmas.  These strategies are designed to promote learning, uphold academic integrity, and prepare students for an evolving legal profession.  This article outlines two broad approaches:  restricting unauthorized AI use and promoting responsible, supervised use.  It provides concrete suggestions …

Dean's Desk: We’Re Providing Encouragement To Would-Be Lawyers, Christiana Ochoa

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

As dean of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, I have the privilege of witnessing firsthand how transformative legal education can be—not only for individual students, but also for the communities and institutions they go on to serve.

But there’s a problem: many promising undergraduate students have been told, explicitly or implicitly, that law school isn’t for them. Some don’t have anyone to turn to for advice and guidance.

Some have been discouraged from considering legal education because their backgrounds don’t fit the traditional mold of what society envisions an attorney to be. Maybe they are first-generation students and …

From Prestige To Performance: Evaluating Law School Outcomes Using Value-Added Modeling, Jason Scott, Andrea Pals, Dominique Monserrat

AccessLex Institute Research

Bar passage and employment rates are widely used to evaluate law school performance, yet these raw outcomes often reflect student selection rather than institutional performance. This study applies a value-added modeling (VAM) framework to assess the contributions of law schools to student success, controlling for prior achievement and contextual factors. Using a 10-year panel dataset of 189 ABA-accredited law schools, we estimate fixed-effects models to isolate the impact of the law school learning environment on first-time bar passage and law-related employment. Our findings reveal that schools traditionally viewed as underperforming often exceed expectations when student background is accounted for, challenging …

Teaching With Ai: Insights From A Faculty Focus Group, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This report summarizes insights from a focus group of law faculty who discussed their experiences and perspectives about using artificial intelligence (AI) in legal education.  The focus group took place at the 2025 Works-in-Progress Conference sponsored by the ADR Section of the Association of American Law Schools.

The responses reflect a range of reactions, providing a snapshot of how some faculty are experimenting with AI, evaluating its risks and benefits, and considering how best to achieve their pedagogical goals.  Participants expressed interest in using AI as a teaching tool – particularly in communication exercises, simulations, and written assignments – and …

Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Commit $6 Million To Name Clinical Education Program At Cardozo School Of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law announced a $6 million gift from alumna Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano to renovate and expand its clinical education facilities. The gift will establish the Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano Program for Clinical Education, supporting experiential legal education and increasing access to justice through Cardozo's nationally recognized clinical programs.

Teaching Students To Write Well With Ai (Even If You're Still Learning It): A Guide For Faculty Who Want To Teach - Not Play Detective, John Lande

Faculty Publications

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools rapidly enter legal education, faculty need practical ways to guide student writing and promote academic integrity.  This one-page guide offers concrete strategies to help faculty teach students to think and write more effectively with AI tools.  As students increasingly use AI on their own, faculty face two related challenges:  preventing misuse and promoting deeper learning.

This guide frames the instructor’s role not as a detective, but as a coach who helps students use AI responsibly.  It outlines techniques to clarify expectations, promote good writing, and foster critical engagement with AI.  Adapted from the short …

Did Your Student Or A Bot Write This Paper?: Teaching And Grading In The Age Of Ai, John Lande

Faculty Publications

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting traditional assumptions about law students’ authorship of their written assignments.  Faculty are concerned about their ability to tell whether students are writing their own papers or simply using AI tools like ChatGPT.  This article offers practical strategies for addressing this problem, focusing on teaching and grading practices that promote transparency, accountability, and learning.

It recommends that faculty require students to include AI use certification cover sheets with their papers, disclosing whether and how they used AI tools during the writing process.  The article also explains how faculty can shift from purely summative to use …

Faculty Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Teaching, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This report presents findings from a 2025 survey of U.S. law faculty about their own use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and how their students use them as well.  Most respondents reported using AI at least occasionally for teaching-related purposes, and many estimated that a majority of their students used it in their courses.

Faculty identified benefits such as time savings, idea generation, and improved clarity. They also reported significant concerns about students’ over-reliance on AI, as well as the unreliability of its outputs.

Most faculty had revised assignments and assessment practices and provided guidance to …

A Video Guide For Teaching Law Students To Use Ai Wisely, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article introduces a video that provides practical guidance about using artificial intelligence (AI) in legal education.  It presents a basic introduction to AI and describes how law students and faculty can benefit from tools like ChatGPT.  Because many students already use AI on their own, the video emphasizes the need to teach them how to use it wisely and responsibly.  The video also includes demonstrations showing how faculty can use AI to develop new simulations and how students can use it to prepare for them.  This article provides links to the video, PowerPoint slides, the chat transcript, and related …

Teaching With Ai - And Teaching Students To Use It Well, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article argues that the rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into legal practice creates an opportunity-and need-for legal educators to rethink and improve their courses. While some faculty fear that AI will erode students' skills or encourage academic dishonesty, thoughtful use of AI tools in legal education actually can promote deeper learning, improve student writing, and reveal how students actually think. The article distinguishes between summative and formative assessment and explains how AI can produce meaningful formative feedback. It offers specific examples of AI-based assignments that can help students build core professional skills, and it highlights the importance of …

Getting Help From Ai To Update Your Syllabus (Even If You Think It's Just Fine), John Lande

Faculty Publications

Law school faculty often reuse the same syllabi from year to year, assuming that if a course "isn't broken," it doesn't need fixing. But with the upcoming NextGen Bar Exam, new lawyer licensing regimes, and the widespread use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, the context for teaching dispute resolution is changing rapidly.

This short article encourages faculty to reflect on their syllabi and consider how generative AI tools can support thoughtful, efficient updates. It offers practical strategies for adapting to bar exam and licensing developments, incorporating AI skills into courses, integrating representation and neutral perspectives, and redesigning assignments to …

Using Ai To Promote Student Learning Through Preparation For And Reflection About Simulations, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article provides model language for a course assignment in which students use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to prepare for and reflect on simulations. The assignment promotes deep learning and supports formative assessment by helping faculty see how students think, make choices, and develop insights. Students upload the simulation materials and the assignment to an AI tool, use it to plan for the simulation, and return to the same chat afterward to reflect. They then ask the AI to generate a draft paper, which they revise using the Track Changes feature in Word. Faculty can use the same feature to …

Boundary-Setting And Choice-Making With No "Adult" In The Room: Professional Identity Formation Opportunities For 1ls In The Transactional Context, Marni Goldstein Caputo, Kathleen Luz

Faculty Scholarship

Law schools are now required by the American Bar Association’s Standard 303(b)(3) to provide students with opportunities for professional identity formation throughout their legal education. It is critical that those opportunities be well-balanced and tied to the realities of practice. Yet until recently, we, as 1L lawyering skills professors at Boston University School of Law, only provided those opportunities in the litigation context. Further, our 1L lawyering skills curriculum was, since its inception, almost entirely steeped in litigation. This litigation focus matches neither the career trajectory nor the upper-level experiential opportunities of the majority of our students. In fact, transactional …

Be Curious, Not Judgmental: Neurodiversity In Legal Education, Katherine Silver Kelly

Arkansas Law Review

This Article takes the position that the curiosity associated with legal education is limited to those who are neurotypical. For students who are neurodivergent, law school is a place of judgment, not curiosity. The number of neurodiverse law students is increasing, yet they are not sufficiently supported in law school. This Article will seek to show how the current structures of legal education, although fundamentally sound, have become overly rigid. Instead of providing students with intellectual foundations of legal doctrine that prepare them for the challenges of practicing law, the existing status quo stifles those goals. By limiting our practices …

Symposium Introduction: Interrogating The Hidden Curriculum: Implications For Formation Of Professional Identity, David I. C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an introduction to the Symposium, which was held at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law on September 22 - 23, 2023. The Symposium brought together law professors who have taken up the call in the Carnegie Report and the ABA Accreditation requirement that we make broad and integrated effort to provide opportunities for law students to form their professional identities as future attorneys while they are in law school. The law professors invited to participate in the Symposium have worked and written in the area of professional identity for lawyers for many years, and are …

Responsible Realism About Artificial Intelligence: How Ai Is Shaping Legal And Dispute Resolution Practice, Education, And Scholarship, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article synthesizes the views of legal scholars examining how generative artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting legal and dispute resolution practice, education, and scholarship. They share a perspective of responsible realism – recognizing both the promise and the perils of AI. It is already reshaping how lawyers, neutrals, educators, students, and scholars work – and its influence will only grow.

The scholars identify clear benefits: broader access, greater efficiency, and new support for professional learning. They also warn of serious risks, including bias, deskilling, and erosion of judgment. Avoiding both hype and panic, they analyze developments, offer realistic strategies, and …

Democratic Lawyering: Upending The "Hidden Curriculum" To Prepare New Lawyers For A New World, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Andrew King-Ries, Monte Mills

Articles

Multiple heightening crises reveal the deficiencies and contradictions of legal education, in particular the values it imparts. Perpetuating myths about U.S. democracy and rule of law, the enduring formalist, liberal legalist cast of law school is increasingly at odds with students’ lived experiences. As liberal democracy and the rule of law falter, no longer is relying on the “hidden curriculum” or the historically nebulous and mythical narratives of the law and our legal system sufficient to prepare tomorrow’s lawyers for the challenges faced by our profession. Instead, with a boost from ABA Standard 303, this article draws on the tradition …

The Form Knows Best, Tara Chowdhury, Faith Chudkowski, Mitu Gulati

University of Miami Law Review

Law students learn that contracts are carefully negotiated, precisely drafted, and shaped by doctrine. But lawyers tell a different story. This article compares six pillars of contract law with what we heard in over 170 interviews with senior transactional lawyers across M&A, sovereign bonds, and leveraged loans. The result is a gap between the Official Story taught in classrooms and the Unofficial Story told by practitioners—where boilerplate dominates, case law is rarely consulted, and market custom often prevails over efficient design. We suggest that many contract provisions are better understood as historical artifacts: products of inherited forms and production pressure. …

Chatgpt Didn’T Write This . . . Or Did It? The Emergence Of Generative Ai In The Legal Field And Lessons From Mata V. Avianca, James H. Curlin Iv

Arkansas Law Review

It’s no secret: Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), for better or worse, is revolutionizing the world. The legal field and legal education at large are not immune to this explosion of possible uses for AI technology. However, as with any technological advancement, AI and Generative Language Models bring with them many challenges, including the implications of their use. One such challenge was vividly presented in the case of Mata v. Avianca, often referred to as “The ChatGPT Case.” Mata is a cautionary tale of the potential missteps that can trip up the unwitting user who naively relies on the lofty promises of …

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bot: What I Learned About Ai And What You Can Too, John Lande

Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools play an increasingly prominent role in legal education, legal practice, and dispute resolution. People’s understanding of how these tools work varies widely. This article outlines a framework to improve AI literacy among dispute resolution practitioners, parties, ADR program managers, faculty, students, and scholars. It highlights emerging trends and offers practical suggestions and resources to support AI literacy and the responsible integration of AI into their work. A companion article, Getting the Most from AI Tools: A Practical Guide to Writing Effective Prompts, helps users, especially those in dispute resolution roles, learn how to write effective …

Teaching The Arc Of Electric Spark: Igniting Curiosity, Creativity, And Innovation Throughout The Law School Curriculum, Jason G. Dykstra

Northern Illinois University Law Review

A heighted velocity of change enveloped the legal profession over the last three decades. From big law to rural practitioners, the traditional law firm model of billing time by the hour proved ripe for disruption. Technological advances automated many once-billable activities; enhanced client sophistication and cost-consciousness restricted law firm revenue by imposing billing guidelines and alternative fee arrangements; clients increasingly retain legal work in-house; and global competition allowed legal services to be disaggregated and outsourced to the lowest cost provider. The net effect of this disruption is reflected in the revenue of the legal services sector, which adjusted for inflation, …

Rps Coach Project: A Growing Library About A Valuable Ai Tool, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This document collects a growing library of publications, videos, and podcasts about the RPS Negotiation and Mediation Coach (RPS Coach), an AI tool grounded in Real Practice Systems (RPS) Theory. RPS Coach is designed to support mediators, lawyers, parties, educators, students, and scholars by promoting good decision-making and reflective practice in negotiation and mediation. This piece summarizes articles and blog posts that present the theory, knowledge base, and functions of RPS Coach, along with practical guidance for its use in dispute resolution, writing, and legal education. It includes links to each publication and will be updated as new work is …