Top Law Schools Ban AI Tools in Core Classes to Preserve Learning

Several prominent U.S. law schools have implemented restrictions on artificial intelligence in the classroom, marking a significant pushback against technology that has rapidly infiltrated the legal profession.

The University of Chicago Law School has banned phones, tablets, and laptops from core first-year classrooms for the current academic year. The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law has prohibited students from using generative AI "for aid in conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit," according to details first reported by the Financial Times.

The Case Against AI in Legal Education

William Hubbard, chair of Chicago Law's AI committee, defended the restrictions by emphasizing traditional pedagogy. "The whole point is to do things the hard way—because that's how you learn," he said. The "hard way" refers to the Socratic method, where students debate cases and legal principles in front of professors and peers—a foundational approach to legal training that becomes difficult when AI tools handle the analytical heavy lifting.

Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky articulated a similar concern: "If AI is doing the thinking and writing for them, we aren't teaching them how to do it." He noted that the school's default position is that student work should not be produced by tools like Claude, though individual professors retain some discretion.

Chicago Law stopped short of a blanket ban, however. Dean Adam Chilton acknowledged the reality of AI adoption: "We take as a starting point that our students are going to use it, so how do we adapt our curriculum to reflect that, not wish it away?"

Why it matters

These restrictions arrive at a critical juncture for the legal profession. AI has become embedded infrastructure in law firms and corporate legal departments, with legal technology startups attracting more than $2.4 billion in funding during the first nine months of 2025 alone. The tension between preparing students for an AI-saturated workplace and ensuring they develop fundamental analytical skills represents a challenge facing professional education broadly—not just law schools. The decisions at Chicago and Berkeley suggest elite institutions believe foundational competencies must be developed before students can effectively leverage AI tools.

AI Adoption Across Sectors

The legal profession's embrace of AI mirrors broader enterprise trends. Recent data from PYMNTS Intelligence found that 95% of financial services firms report broad or embedded use of AI in data and technology operations, compared to 84% in healthcare and 81% in media. Financial firms appear to be scaling AI fastest in areas where rules are clear, data can be verified, and outcomes measured—conditions that also characterize much legal work.

Hubbard noted that "the power of AI tools and the legal profession's eagerness to adopt [them] are at an inflection point," creating urgency for educational institutions to establish guidelines before technology fundamentally reshapes how future lawyers are trained.

These details were first reported by Patti Waldmeir in the Financial Times.