Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers: Professional Identity in the AI Era

A panel discussion exploring how legal education must evolve in the age of artificial intelligence.

Our premise is straightforward: law schools must cultivate fluency in AI without diluting—indeed, while reinforcing—the intellectual, ethical, and relational competencies that define the profession.

Panelists, from around the nation and from St. Thomas Law, include faculty members teaching AI literacy—at both mathematical and layperson levels—as well as those who teach AI’s integration with other key professional skills and into the rapidly changing practice of law.

The discussion will first focus on how to have students graduate who are not merely “aware of” AI but capable with it. They should be able to work effectively in AI-enabled research, drafting, and analytic environments with discernment and confidence. But this raises harder questions: What, precisely, are the learning outcomes of AI competence? Is it tool literacy, systems thinking, prompt craft, verification, or all the above? Where, in an already crowded curriculum, do these capacities live: embedded across courses, or in dedicated instruction? In short, what does it mean, in practice, to be “AI-ready” as a new lawyer?

The second focus—just as urgent—is on how legal education must defend the terrain that should not be ceded to algorithms and neural networks. These include cultivating critical thinking, judgment, and interpretive reasoning; fostering professional identity formation; and strengthening the personal and relational skills that underpin trust, client sensitivity, and ethical lawyering. Here, thoughtful restraint may be as important as adoption. The strategic absence of AI in certain pedagogical spaces may be essential to preserving what makes legal expertise not only effective, but distinctly human.

This program has applied for 2 standard CLE credits.

In-person event code: 546094

Live webinar event code: 546096

Info: Throughout this event, the discussion will focus on what law schools are doing to prepare students for a future that involves AI; how to best instruct students on the proper use of AI; and ways that our current and future students can leverage their experience with AI in the law school into future jobs and opportunities. The panel will discuss different ways that law schools are incorporating AI into their curriculum and leveraging this technology to bolster their student’s future success.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

University of St. Thomas School of Law, 1101 Harmon Place, Minneapolis, United States

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