Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-4-2025

Abstract

Much has been written and said about generative AI's potential uses and misuses by lawyers and law students in the past year. This essay does not rehash the many ongoing discourses about whether, how, and to what extent generative AI (GenAI) can be used for and taught in legal writing courses. Rather, this essay is written under the assumption that, at least to some extent early on in the law school experience, some professors don't want 1L legal writing students using GenAI to draft legal memoranda and briefs for them. As the American Bar Association's Formal Ethics Opinion 512 warns, it is important to develop human lawyerly intelligence first before engaging in and being able to assess artificial intelligence. Despite the need for law students to develop that requisite lawyer intelligence required to meaningfully assess the value of any given AI-generated legal analysis, however, Lexis AI+ is now widely available to law students from their first month in school. That widespread access to GenAI may have its benefits, but not without also posing significant dangers of new AI-aided opportunities for plagiarism.

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