Artificial Intelligence, the Law, and the Legal Profession

This Guide provides information and resources on AI and the practice of law, including materials and trackers that cover how legislatures, agencies, and courts are addressing issues at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and the law. It also provides an overview of AI tools, such as those offered by Westlaw and Lexis+, and it highlights a variety of materials, including books, articles, and reports, about AI. 

IBM provides helpful definitions of Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI, along with other terminology, like machine learning and agentic AI.

At the same time, AI has a number of important limitations, and AI tools raise a wide variety of practical, ethical, and other concerns:

• Because AI models rely on data, it is worth thinking about what sources were used in data collection and what biases and limitations are reflected by those sources;
• AI harnesses technology, but it requires human involvement, expertise, and assessment;
• AI may allow some tasks to be completed quickly, with limited human effort, but the results or outcomes may not always be optimal;
• Generative AI systems have serious environmental consequences* 
• AI continues to have an impact on many areas of law and on the practice of law and legal education.

* See Kate Crawford, Generative AI's environmental costs are soaring -- and mostly secret, Nature, February 20, 2024.

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