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The Hindu
6 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
AI in legal education: Industry experts highlight need for AI literacy in law schools
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into legal education is becoming increasingly essential as the Indian judiciary grapples with persistent case backlogs. With a government allocation of ₹7210 Crore for the e-Courts Phase III project, which includes ₹53.57 Crore specifically for AI and Blockchain technologies, the legal landscape is set to undergo significant transformation. AI technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Predictive Analytics are being utilised to automate administrative tasks, enhance case tracking, and improve crime prevention efforts. This shift is not limited to the judiciary; top law firms in India are also adopting AI tools to streamline research, drafting, and due diligence processes. However, this raises critical questions about ethics, bias, and the future of legal education. To prepare students for an evolving job market where AI plays a crucial role, law schools must update their curricula to include AI literacy. Students should learn how to adapt technology while preserving core legal principles and enhancing their critical assessment skills. The Hindu hosted a webinar titled 'Gamechanger: Teaching AI to Law Students and Lawyers' on July 5 at 5:00 p.m. It featured experts like Shouvik Kumar Guha from NUJS and Sonam Chandwani from KS Legal & Associates. The discussion will focus on how law schools can implement these changes effectively. How are law firms using AI? According to Ms. Chandwani, AI is very beneficial for students aiming to join law firms, as law firms have evolved, and so have their expectations from new hires. She emphasized that legal education must become more aligned with practical industry needs. Ms. Chandwani stressed the need for AI literacy. She said that students should learn AI basics in plain terms, like how machine learning can dig through court rulings or predict outcomes, or how natural language processing speeds up reading contracts under the Indian Contract Act. She said that students don't need to be tech geniuses, as that's not their forte, but just understand how AI helps firms save time and win clients. On the uses of AI at a law firm, she said, 'We use AI when we are unable to find the relevant judgments or are unable to do research within the specified time. Ms. Chandwani said these skills make new hires valuable as firms use AI to cut costs on big cases. She added, 'AI comes in handy while conducting due diligence, preparing the checklist, or going through the contract review.' Ms. Chandwani said AI can make mistakes, like giving wrong judgments. It is very important to understand and read the subject and ensure that the outcomes are efficient. Highlighting data sensitivity, she said firms handle private clients' data, so they face hefty fines in case there is any slip-up. She added, 'Students also need to learn how to spot and fix these biases to keep firms out of trouble. End-to-end job will never be possible to be done through AI.' Exploring different teaching techniques According to Mr. Guha, the legal field is changing, and once technology gets introduced in a certain field, you cannot keep tech out of it forcibly. Pointing to the limitations in current educational structures, Guha observed, 'There are law schools with over 800, 900 students in a batch. How is a teacher supposed to give personalised feedback and prepare these students specifically? This gap is something which we can try to bridge with technology.' Also Read: AI in law: Students need to sharpen critical assessment skills to make best use of technology Mr. Guha said that AI-powered tutors by no means whatsoever are a substitute for faculty, but they can guide students with additional, specific feedback. However, he said, 'Completely unregulated and unsupervised use of AI tools, especially at a formative age for law students, has the disadvantage of robbing them of some of the critical thinking power'. Mr. Guha stressed that with the advent of AI, the traditional methodology of giving students a piece of essay to write as an assignment won't work. 'Because it's too much of a temptation to just give a prompt to ChatGPT and get a 5,000-word essay in ten seconds. One of the alternative solutions that Mr. Guha explored is that he can ask the students to submit a line-by-line critique of the assignment that the large language model has produced. Also Read: Justice Unplugged: 'Law students must stay rooted in legal knowledge, not solely rely on AI' Mr. Guha elaborated, 'Students can see whether the cases which have been used are to be used in those case scenarios, whether there is an extra case the model has missed, whether there is a jump in logic that AI has made in the way it has talked about certain provisions. Are those provisions applicable here?' He added, 'So I ask for a line-by-line critique of that. And if I intend to help the student research, help the student learn about the problem more—that can get sorted that way.' Mr. Guha also pointed to the limitations of current teaching methods, stating that one of the biggest issues that we face is the lack of innovation and imagination inside classrooms. 'If I am teaching students about a certain scenario, I can use AI to come up with multiple different case studies or multiple different possible ways in which the students can attack a problem. You know, simulation techniques. There can be hundreds of different things.' Can AI perpetuate inequalities in law education? Mr. Sharma said we need to ask who has access to these tools. He highlighted disparities among Indian law schools, stating, He added that AI risks entrenching deeper academic disparities. He said, 'People who know about AI can build their resume using it. They can write articles through AI and then get them published through sham publication formats.' Moreover, he pointed out systemic divides even within the teaching staff. 'Some of the faculties are also training in AI, especially in the premier law schools, which have access to the best AI tools—they are training their students for future employment', he said.
The Hindu
01-07-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
AI in Legal Education: The Hindu's webinar with experts from NUJS, KS Legal and Law Firm Ready
Case backlogs have been a persistent issue for the Indian judiciary. To resolve it, AI-powered technologies—including Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and Predictive Analytics are now being leveraged to automate administrative tasks, improve case tracking, and enhance crime prevention. The Government of India has allocated a total of ₹7210 Crore for the e-Courts Phase III project for judicial digital transformation. Within this budget, ₹53.57 Crore is specifically earmarked for the integration of AI and Blockchain technologies across High Courts in India. This deployment of AI is not limited to the judiciary, but top-tier law firms in the country have also adapted AI tools for routine work. AI has changed workflows by streamlining research, drafting, and due diligence while raising important questions around ethics, bias, and the future of legal education. To keep up with these developments, law schools need to update their curricula with AI integration to ensure students remain employable. Some institutes have taken initial steps towards AI teaching and learning. In the long run, though, institutes will need to provide students with practical, hands-on exposure to AI tools. Students need to be taught to adapt to technology while preserving the core principles of legal education. They need to sharpen their critical assessment skills to verify AI-generated content, check legal citations, and ensure jurisdictional relevance. To discuss how this change can be brought forth, The Hindu will host a webinar titled 'Gamechanger: Teaching AI to law students, lawyers', on July 5 at 5:00 p.m. The panellists include Shouvik Kumar Guha, Associate Professor, NUJS; Sonam Chandwani, Managing Partner, KS Legal & Associates; Rohit Sharma, Founder, Law Firm Ready. The webinar will be moderated by Ravina Warkad, who works at the education vertical of The Hindu. Register now for free to ask questions and interact with the panellists. Those who ask the three best questions will receive a free online subscription to The Hindu. Panellists Shouvik Kumar Guha, Associate Professor, NUJS Shouvik Kumar Guha is currently serving as an Associate Professor of Law and Technology at The West Bengal National university of Juridical Sciences (NUJS). He is also the Founding Director of the Centre for Law, Literature and Popular Culture, the Associate Director of the Centre for Aviation and Space Laws, and the Assistant Director of the Centre for Financial and Regulatory Governance Studies, the Centre for Competition Laws and Centre for Law and Technology at NUJS. He is also a TEDx speaker, a Senior Research Fellow (Non-Resident) at the Vidhi Centre for Law and Policy, Associate Research Fellow (Non-Resident) at the Centre for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CeRAI), IIT Madras, a Visiting Faculty at the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur, and at the Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak, as well as an Honorary Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Advancing Intelligence (IAI) of TCG Centres for Research and Education in Science and Technology (TCG CREST). Sonam Chandwani, Managing Partner, KS Legal & Associates Sonam Chandwani is the Managing Partner at KS Legal & Associates and heads the firm's Corporate Litigation Practice. She specialises in commercial structures, commercial litigation, mergers and acquisitions generally, with an emphasis on large-scale and complex commercial litigation including contract law, trade practices, real estate disputes and finance issues across a range of industry sectors. She advises on insolvency matters and her expertise covers all forms of dispute resolution, arbitration and mediation. Rohit Sharma, Founder, Law Firm Ready Rohit Sharma is an alumnus from the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata. After working with organisations such as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Jansahas, he founded Awaaz Leadership Labs(ALL) and Law Firm Ready. His organisation has so far trained 10,000+ law students from over 650 law schools in the country. He is currently working on building differential learning pedagogies in legal education and working towards reforms in clinical legal education. Mr. Sharma has also served as researcher at Lakshmi Mittal South Asian Institute, Harvard University, where he researches on 'History of Punishment in India'. (2022-2025). He is the conceptualiser of NUJS Diversity Report, MP Migrants Report, Vernacular Legal Blogs Series(JILS) and Reforms in Legal education Interview Series (JILS). (For any feedback or suggestions, reach out to us at education@
