How legal education is adapting to AI

The law library identifies general-purpose language models as useful for early-stage exploration, summaries, brainstorming research strategies, and related study support, subject to independent verification.

The School of Law's 2025–26 handbook permits generative AI for exam preparation—for example, summarizing case law, creating outlines, or listing arguments—unless a professor adopts a different written course policy. AI use during an exam is prohibited.

The law library recommends personal research, initial brainstorming, identifying search terms, and developing Boolean searches as potential study uses, while emphasizing that professor-specific coursework rules control.

The Technology Committee's sample policies permit preparing for class, studying for exams, and brainstorming assignments, while cautioning students not to use AI as a substitute for assigned readings. The samples are nonbinding guidance.

Students may use AI for studying, brainstorming, preparing an exam outline, summarizing legal arguments, identifying a bibliography, and finding typographical errors, unless an instructor narrows the rule.

The Rinn Law Library provides student guidance on brainstorming, explaining complex concepts, developing outlines and research plans, creating study aids, prompting, verification, and responsible AI use.

The 2025–26 Handbook of Academic Policies expressly permits students to prompt AI while studying for an exam about relevant topics or concepts, but not to have AI pre-write text that the student later incorporates into an exam answer.

Section 400.4 encourages AI for learning, research, and grammar correction, but also states that any use not expressly authorized by the instructor is academic dishonesty. Any authorized use must be disclosed and cited, and AI may not compose submitted work.

AI-enabled legal-research databases and similar research tools remain permitted unless the instructor restricts them. The regulations separately prohibit unauthorized AI use in preparing any assignment.

The student AI guide distinguishes learning uses—checking reasoning, exploring doctrine, and generating practice problems—from using AI to produce academic work, and emphasizes course rules and ethical use.

The Mendik Library's law-student guide explains AI tools and uses, prompt engineering, ethical use, and fact-checking so students can explore and evaluate AI outputs critically.

The handbook permits database-style identification of research documents and spelling or grammar review while restricting broader AI assistance.

The policy and FAQ permit AI for pre-exam study, including outline preparation, explanations of legal concepts and case holdings, and practice, subject to course-specific rules, accuracy verification, and the restriction on sharing professor-created or confidential materials.

Across all courses, including clinics, the default permits AI to support learning and to develop or refine a student's own ideas, subject to course-specific rules.

As an interim measure for 2026–27, Suffolk will add a more robust AI session to orientation and distribute an evidence-informed guide to studying with AI. Separately, the Teaching Committee is charged with developing longer-term student training and resources.

The strategy identifies productive study uses and de-skilling risks but does not announce one school-wide rule for AI use in coursework.

Students may not upload assignments, readings, slides, class recordings, or other class content to generative AI systems, which restricts study uses that depend on those materials. The policy does not otherwise expressly address private, non-upload study uses.

Handbook § 4.9 permits pre-exam AI queries about a case holding or arguments for and against a legal position. The July 2026 strategy separately identifies clarification of background concepts and generation of practice problems as productive study uses. Course-specific instructions still control.

For 2026–27, AI may be used for studying and preparing for class or exams, subject to course rules.

Unless a professor publishes different rules, the policy permits generative AI for purposes such as generating ideas or questions, finding paper topics, and assisting research; submitted assignments and assessments remain subject to a default prohibition.

Unless a written course rule provides otherwise, students may use generative AI to study for exams, including preparing outlines and reviewing case holdings and legal arguments.

Students may use AI-generated study materials under the default policy, subject to written course-specific departures.