FeedA curated, non-exhaustive feed of court rulings, bar guidance, scholarship, and news on artificial intelligence and the legal profession — from Washington and Lee and beyond.
LatestItems are chosen because they're relevant to how AI is reshaping law and legal practice, not because the Institute endorses the publisher's views. Know of something we should include? Send it our way.
AI for Legal Practice is a one-credit course that starts before classes do, combining recorded modules on cognitive security and how language models work with six hours of orientation workshops on when AI output can be trusted. It is taught by Prof. Josh Fairfield and Nate Reynolds '22L. Course details
A Southern District of New York criminal ruling found no reasonable expectation of confidentiality in a defendant's chats with a public AI platform, while courts in the Eastern District of Michigan and the District of Colorado treated the same kind of tool as software rather than a third party, preserving work-product protection in civil matters.
The California State Bar's revised guidance extends the duty of competence and confidentiality to agentic AI systems, not just chat-style tools, and reiterates that strategic professional judgment can't be delegated to a model regardless of how capable it appears.
The North Carolina Bar Association argues that firms are past asking whether AI will be used and now need to govern how, pointing to survey figures showing wide individual use but far fewer formal firm policies. It calls an outright ban unrealistic and counterproductive, and recommends a risk-based approach instead.
The law school announced self-directed modules that all first-year students will complete in their first quarter, aiming to bring everyone to a baseline of generative AI literacy, with students who already know the basics able to move ahead. It said the modules would launch in early 2026.
Beginning in fall 2026, every first-year student at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law takes “Introduction to the Responsible Use of AI,” a course on using AI tools effectively and ethically while understanding their limits.
The piece advises courts to train clerks, librarians, and self-help staff to discuss AI-generated drafts without endorsing any tool, to be cautious about general-purpose AI for court-specific questions, and to insist that outputs be checked against official sources. It describes purpose-built tools as a safer alternative that takes significant development and testing.
The article reports that self-represented, non-prisoner cases grew from 11% to 16.8% of federal civil cases over five years, and that complaints showing signs of AI drafting went from almost none in 2019 to more than 18% by 2026. It warns that polished-looking filings often contain fabricated authorities, yet baseless cases may survive early screening and last longer.
The 8am Legal Industry Report finds generative AI use among individual lawyers more than doubled year over year, but firm-wide policy and training haven't kept up — a governance gap that leaves a lot of ungoverned AI use happening inside otherwise well-run firms.
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