I write now with a few “may we?” questions regarding permitted uses of generative AI in your course diverging from [the school’s default AI policy prohibitions]. Importantly, these questions assume the use of GenAI tools that do NOT use input data to train public models .
For GenAI with such data privacy/security settings, may we:
1. Upload the course syllabus into the AI tool so that it can create a work/reading schedule for us?
2. Upload course materials—such as your Course Materials version 1, your Law Governing Lawyers [outline] with [] Rules 2026, PowerPoint slides, practice exams, or our personal class notes incorporating course materials—to help us generate course outlines for personal use, and more generally for the purpose of better understanding course content, e.g., by requesting that the AI tool draft case briefs, summarize or explain dense texts, or generate flash cards, quizzes, or practice questions?
3. Use AI on personally generated class notes or outlines containing course materials to assist with formatting, organization, and comprehension (including generating case briefs, text summaries, and answering our personal questions about the material)?
4. Use AI in any other way prohibited by [the school’s] default GenAI policy in the ~four areas the policy identifies:
a. Exams
b. Work submitted for credit (using AI for aid in conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing)
c. Research on papers (essentially the same in this course to (b) work submitted for credit), beyond the limited purpose of identifying sources, such as cases, statutes, or secondary sources
d. Uploading course materials (for purposes other than those identified in (2) above)—I’m assuming that an important rationale for this prohibition was a concern about IP infringement. But it seems that this concern wouldn’t arise with respect to use of GenAI like Gemini or Harvey that does not use input data to train models?
[The school’s] default AI policy rule also specifically prohibits:
*Asking an AI tool to brainstorm a paper topic or thesis (prohibited conceptualizing)
*Asking an AI tool to propose an organizational structure for a paper (prohibited outlining)
*Asking an AI tool to compose a paragraph summarizing a legal rule for use in a paper (prohibited drafting)
*Asking an AI tool to identify repetitive passages in a paper that should be cut (prohibited revising)
*Asking an AI tool to polish a paper by correcting grammatical mistakes (prohibited editing)
*Asking AI to generate an exam outline, elements of which are then used on the exam (prohibited exam use)
*Asking AI to translate a paper originally written in another language into English (prohibited translating)
Would you [allow us] to use AI tools in any of these ways?
4. Use Westlaw and Lexis’s AI tools, and in particular their drafting, summarizing, and research functionalities however we wish (while of course checking for hallucinated citations and factual accuracy)?
5. Use AI to generate or check Bluebook citation formatting?
6. Use AI to shorten a paper to meet a page or word limit? (This is one use I have personally found to be really helpful!)
Finally, for any uses of AI that you authorize, could you please let us know how would you like us to disclose our use?
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….
How should the legal ethics professor answer these questions?
My answer: except for using AI as a research tool, which still would require verifying all results, I would make it simple and rule all other uses of AI bots impermissible.
Ethics Alarms 
I think a lot of the proposed uses should not be prohibited simply because of AI use. They should be discouraged because they impede the development of useful skills.
the one he said he found very useful, cutting down words to make a page limit, is something he should learn. I worked for a lawyer while I was in law school; he was terribly verbose. I had to edit his briefs to get them under the limit. I went through every line, every word, cutting down pages, only for him to expand them again. It was an aggravatingly useful exercise.
Using AI to correct grammar? Same comment: you should learn it. However, Microsoft Word already does a spell-check and some grammar checks. Is that “AI”? Should that be prohibited if AI is?
Prohibited translation? Yeah, it’s great to learn a foreign language but that is kinda a big expectation. I honestly don’t understand this one. How would this problem present itself. Most foreign language uses in the law would seem to be Latin. However, those are typically short and easily found in black’s law dictionary. However, if I Google the phrase to get the translation, how is that different than using AI, particularly since Google searches often generate AI responses. Is using Google Translate prohibited or not. Like I said, I don’t understand the problem so I don’t understand the prohibition.
I would not be as broad in my prohibition as you, but excluding AI for pedagogical reasons strikes me as legitimate. At the same time, as someone who has said lawyers need to understand technology, including developments in AI, such a blanket prohibition thwarts that understanding. This students seems to have a good handle on its uses.
-Jut
I will precede this comment by noting that I am not a lawyer.
My first comment is that law students need to build skills such as logical thinking, doing legal research, and communicative skills that are critical to the profession as writing legal documents, and making persuasive arguments.
My second comment is that any professional needs to keep up with technology that will affect their work, and may make legal work easier and improve the quality of that work. This makes me wonder about the following prohibitions *Asking an AI tool to identify repetitive passages in a paper that should be cut (prohibited revising) *Asking an AI tool to polish a paper by correcting grammatical mistakes (prohibited editing). To me this makes as much sense as prohibiting lawyers to use Microsoft Word’s spell check functionality (which is does not always give perfect corrections). Is it still OK for lawyers to use Microsoft 365? Microsoft 365 integrates AI technology in all its applications, such as Word, EXCEL, and, PowerPoint. Unless we want to go back to an era when lawyers wore wigs and breaches, and wrote with feather and ink from a pot, the legal profession should better get on board with new technology and learn how to use it properly and how to avoid pitfalls such as including quoting bogus legal cases due to AI hallucinations.
AI technology is new, new technology has child diseases, and that means that critical documents or research results still needs a pair of human eyes before publication. Just dismissing an entire technology out of fear renders a professional a Luddite.
I would think that the legal profession should welcome the development of research tools using AI that do not hallucinate, but use real legal data bases. Streamlining research time could increase productivity and save clients a lot of hourly fees. And if legal AI can become sophisticated enough to draft documents that do not hallucinate, would this not be a boon to the profession? Or is this on that spectrum of humans forgetting how to think?
Students, on the other hand, do need to learn skills by doing the work. There is something to be said for reading, taking notes outlining and summarizing. Apparently doing those things yourself cements the information in your brain far better than letting a bot do the work for you.
Having said that, I do not know that using AI to study should be denied. It should not be used for student work product.
Also not a lawyer.