{"id":146585,"date":"2026-03-20T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/20\/biglaw-partner-primes-columbia-law-students-on-ai-adoption\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:00:41","slug":"biglaw-partner-primes-columbia-law-students-on-ai-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/20\/biglaw-partner-primes-columbia-law-students-on-ai-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw Partner Primes Columbia Law Students On AI Adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often, learning about the law feels more like a history class than preparation to be a lawyer. The average 1L spends hours upon hours memorizing the dates and facts of cases that aren\u2019t even good law anymore \u2014 otherwise known as studying Constitutional law. To contrast, students taking classes on the legal field\u2019s rapid adoption of AI have to keep up with changing companies, developing technology and expectations of privacy as they incorporate AI in to their toolkit. It is hard to look for experienced thinkers in novel fields, but the students at Columbia lucked in to getting a Biglaw partner to school them on AI. Law.com<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

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This spring, Columbia Law School introduced a new course titled \u201cLaw of Artificial Intelligence,\u201d taught by Michel Paradis, a Steptoe partner with a Ph.D. in computational linguistics. Paradis told Legaltech News he wanted to remedy an emerging gap between AI systems\u2019 increasing relevance as a substantive legal area and a general lack of knowledge among the legal profession about how they work.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople become lawyers typically because they\u2019re smart and they don\u2019t like math. \u2026 When you get these technical questions that can really matter to the outcome of a case, it helps to really know what\u2019s going on under the hood,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was this real gap between a basic competence in what\u2019s going on technically and how that should impact the legal issues involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the impact is real \u2014 an assistant US attorney recently resigned<\/a> after a federal judge threatened to sanction him and his office for repeated AI misuse and misquoting holdings. And on the other side of the gavel, even judges are getting caught<\/a> using AI to help write their opinions without knowing to check their work before they submitted everything. <\/p>\n

Besides covering what not to do, the course will focus on regulatory responses to AI adoption and what increased use of AI means for intellectual property. I know I dunked on Conlaw earlier, but the relationship between AI adoption and Article 1 Section 8 is definitely worth hashing out in a classroom. Much of the push against IP protections comes from billionaires, it\u2019s an open question whether constitutional protections are strong enough to bear the force of financial interests attacking them at every turn.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a fun course! As long as AI is here, law schools should be doing their best to prepare students for using it in their work product if they choose to do so. <\/p>\n

Columbia Law School Gets Technical With New AI Course Led by Steptoe Partner<\/a> [Law.com]<\/p>\n

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at\u00a0cwilliams@abovethelaw.com <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw Partner Primes Columbia Law Students On AI Adoption<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Often, learning about the law feels more like a history class than preparation to be a lawyer. The average 1L spends hours upon hours memorizing the dates and facts of cases that aren\u2019t even good law anymore \u2014 otherwise known as studying Constitutional law. To contrast, students taking classes on the legal field\u2019s rapid adoption of AI have to keep up with changing companies, developing technology and expectations of privacy as they incorporate AI in to their toolkit. It is hard to look for experienced thinkers in novel fields, but the students at Columbia lucked in to getting a Biglaw partner to school them on AI. Law.com<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

This spring, Columbia Law School introduced a new course titled \u201cLaw of Artificial Intelligence,\u201d taught by Michel Paradis, a Steptoe partner with a Ph.D. in computational linguistics. Paradis told Legaltech News he wanted to remedy an emerging gap between AI systems\u2019 increasing relevance as a substantive legal area and a general lack of knowledge among the legal profession about how they work.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople become lawyers typically because they\u2019re smart and they don\u2019t like math. \u2026 When you get these technical questions that can really matter to the outcome of a case, it helps to really know what\u2019s going on under the hood,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was this real gap between a basic competence in what\u2019s going on technically and how that should impact the legal issues involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the impact is real \u2014 an assistant US attorney recently resigned<\/a> after a federal judge threatened to sanction him and his office for repeated AI misuse and misquoting holdings. And on the other side of the gavel, even judges are getting caught<\/a> using AI to help write their opinions without knowing to check their work before they submitted everything. <\/p>\n

Besides covering what not to do, the course will focus on regulatory responses to AI adoption and what increased use of AI means for intellectual property. I know I dunked on Conlaw earlier, but the relationship between AI adoption and Article 1 Section 8 is definitely worth hashing out in a classroom. Much of the push against IP protections comes from billionaires, it\u2019s an open question whether constitutional protections are strong enough to bear the force of financial interests attacking them at every turn.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a fun course! As long as AI is here, law schools should be doing their best to prepare students for using it in their work product if they choose to do so. <\/p>\n

Columbia Law School Gets Technical With New AI Course Led by Steptoe Partner<\/a> [Law.com]<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at\u00a0cwilliams@abovethelaw.com <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw Partner Primes Columbia Law Students On AI Adoption<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often, learning about the law feels more like a history class than preparation to be a lawyer. The average 1L spends hours upon hours memorizing the dates and facts of cases that aren\u2019t even good law anymore \u2014 otherwise known as studying Constitutional law. To contrast, students taking classes on the legal field\u2019s rapid adoption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Chris-Williams-2025-03JYuw.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}