AI @ CLS: Columbia Law School’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative

Artificial intelligence is changing what it means to study and practice law. As AI tools become increasingly embedded into lawyers’ day-to-day work, law students need to develop not only fluency with these emerging technologies, but also the capacity to deploy them responsibly and in service of society at large.

Columbia Law School is meeting this transformative moment. AI @ CLS: Columbia Law School’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative, takes a multifaceted approach to AI—equipping students with foundational knowledge, advancing field-defining research, and tackling the profound questions that will define our collective future.

The initiative is grounded in the essential values that constitute the Law School’s unique purpose: open inquiry, academic excellence, and a commitment to preparing students for a rapidly evolving profession. It also builds on the Law School’s leadership at some of history’s most critical inflection points.

“One thing that distinguishes Columbia Law School is our commitment not only to teach students how to think, but also to prepare them for the future,” said Daniel Abebe, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law. “AI presents an extraordinary opportunity to bridge our proud tradition of rigorous, theoretical education with the realities of modern legal practice—to create an environment where students can explore these new tools while developing the judgment, critical thinking, and sense of responsibility to use them well. And, as a law school, we are uniquely positioned to tackle the profound questions AI raises for law, institutions, and society.”

AI @ CLS comprises three interconnected components: 

• Innovating With Purpose: new courses, curricular modules, hands-on training sessions, and cocurricular programs for students to gain AI skills, develop critical judgment, and embrace a sense of intellectual responsibility for their work. 
• Expanding Knowledge: new faculty members and an ever-growing breadth of AI and law scholarship, fostering exploration of AI’s applications, responsible development, and regulation.  
• Tackling Big Questions: a commitment to understanding AI’s broader implications, including for democracy, institutions, economic opportunity, civil and human rights, creativity, labor, access to justice, and the environment.

This work is supported in part by a five-year commitment from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the Law School’s lead firm partner for AI @ CLS. 

“Responsible use of AI has become a core part of how we deliver value to our clients on a day-to-day basis, and we believe it is essential for AI to be a major part of the education and training of law school students,” said Paul, Weiss Chairman Scott A. Barshay ’91. “We are proud to partner with Columbia Law to help empower the next generation of lawyers to be in a position to use AI effectively, creatively, and responsibly after they graduate.”

The partnership with Paul, Weiss will support Columbia Law School’s efforts to develop new curricular and cocurricular offerings; bolster faculty research and expertise in AI; and bring together scholars, practitioners, judges, policymakers, and industry leaders to navigate novel legal and regulatory questions.

“We are thrilled to have the support of Paul, Weiss for this initiative and to have a partner that shares our commitment to rigorous legal training and innovation,” said Dean Abebe. 

The firm itself is committed to responsible innovation, integrating enterprise-grade generative AI tools that protect and maintain client confidentiality into all of its departments and practice groups and launching AI training for lawyers at all levels. 

Innovating With Purpose

In fall 2025, Dean Abebe convened a task force charged with thinking about how to train students to reason carefully and independently, without relying on AI, while equipping them with the AI fluency that they will need to be successful in their careers. 

“We really have two challenges when we think of AI and legal education,” said task force co-chair Talia Gillis, Daniel G. Ross Professor of Law. “We’re thinking both about the impact of AI in education more broadly, but we also are thinking about the impact of AI on lawyering and what it means to be prepared to be a lawyer after graduation. A lot of the community members we talked to emphasized the importance of curiosity and willingness to learn new things and that that is something that will bring the students into the new age.”

The task force ultimately coalesced around a central premise: to provide students with the adaptive conceptual frameworks necessary to navigate a shifting landscape, rather than merely train them on specific tools that may be obsolete by the time they graduate.

Informed by the task force’s work, the Law School released a Default Policy on Student Use of AI for the 2026–2027 school year, which outlines an overarching strategy for incorporating AI in academic settings. Rather than taking an either-or approach, the policy gives faculty the latitude to make their own determinations about how to use AI in their classrooms and provides clear guidance about how to think about AI in the context of a Columbia Law School education. 

“We want our students to experience a range of approaches to AI so they are prepared to act responsibly in the professional world that awaits them,” said Dean Abebe. “Our efforts are designed to integrate the values that are central to a Columbia Law School education with a recognition that rapid advances in technology are reshaping the practice of law.”

In addition to advising about the policy, one of the task force’s challenges was to determine how to ensure students possessed a common baseline of AI knowledge. Given the speed with which AI tools have been deployed, students naturally arrive at Columbia Law School with varying levels of familiarity—both in their basic AI skills and their understanding of how to use the technology in a way that strengthens, rather than substitutes for, critical thinking.

The result is an array of new courses and curricular modules, hands-on training sessions, and cocurricular programs. This exposure began during students’ very first week on campus, during J.D. and LL.M. orientation in August. All incoming students attended the inaugural Paul, Weiss Orientation Session: Law in the Age of AI, which focused on understanding AI tools, using them responsibly and effectively, and exploring their growing role in legal education and practice. The specially designed program—the first stemming from the Law School’s partnership with Paul, Weiss—featured presentations by Gillis, along with Neel Guha, Associate Professor of Law, and Laura C. Turano, a mergers and acquisitions partner at Paul, Weiss.

Guha, a computer scientist and legal scholar whose research focuses on AI, provided a framework for understanding different types of AI systems students are likely to encounter at the Law School and in legal practice, as well as an analogy to help students determine which AI tools are best suited for particular tasks. “Part of what we’re going to work on with respect to AI over the next few years is recognizing that there are different kinds of AI products, that each of these AI products has a particular purpose or fit, and how we can develop intuitions about where different AI tools work best,” he said.

Turano, also speaking at the session, highlighted the ways that AI can play an important role in promoting excellence. “How do you deliver excellence to your clients—whether your client can’t afford to pay … or is the biggest company in the world?” she asked. “Any tool that can help lawyers do that is one you want to understand and optimize.”

Going forward, all Columbia Law School students will be able to explore AI through a variety of curricular options, ranging from an introductory lecture course to intensive, subject-specific seminars. 

In Law & AI, a new upper-level elective survey course co-taught by Gillis and Eric Talley, Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business, students gain an introduction to the legal, technical, and normative dimensions of artificial intelligence, regardless of their prior background in AI or technical training. 

“This course will act as a gateway to other courses in which students can go more in depth into particular topics, whether it’s talking about regulation in particular jurisdictions or certain domains and their impact on AI,” said Gillis.

Other courses will examine AI’s intersection with doctrinal areas like intellectual property, machine learning, cybersecurity and data privacy, and the economy. These include such classes as the Law of Artificial Intelligence; Cybersecurity, Data Privacy and Surveillance Law; and Intellectual Property in the Digital Age. Students can also explore AI through experiential learning opportunities, such as the In-House Counsel Tech & Startups externship, and by participating in student organizations and journals that focus on AI and technology.

For 1Ls, AI literacy is being woven into the Legal Practice Workshop, the Law School’s first-year legal research and writing course. In addition, Gillis and Rebecca Wexler, Alfred W. Bressler Professor of Law, are developing AI modules that instructors can incorporate into their 1L Foundation courses. 

Expanding Knowledge

Beyond the classroom experience, AI is reshaping the questions legal scholars ask and tactics they employ to conduct research. Through AI @ CLS, Columbia Law School is supporting and advancing faculty scholarship at the intersection of AI and law while enabling researchers to explore the technology’s applications in legal research, teaching, and practice. 

Columbia Law School is becoming a nexus for faculty and scholars who work in the area. Guha, who joined the Law School in July, said that, from an institutional perspective, “there’s an opportunity to build our philosophy about AI as a Columbia community,” as well as to develop innovative techniques to “train law students who can effectively negotiate and traverse a professional terrain with this technology.”

Under the umbrella of the Paul, Weiss partnership, Elliott Ash LAW ’10, GSAS ’16 will join the Law School as the inaugural Paul, Weiss Distinguished AI Scholar in Residence. Ash’s research focuses on applying computational methods to legal texts. During his three-year appointment, which begins in January 2027, Ash will teach three AI-focused courses each year and further strengthen Columbia Law School’s expertise in law and technology. 

AI @ CLS also brings together scholars, students, and practitioners to contribute to the development of AI and its responsible application across disciplines. In the AI and Law Colloquium, launched this fall and taught by Wexler, guest scholars visit campus throughout the semester to present works in progress, exposing students to cutting-edge legal scholarship in AI and law.

Faculty are already incorporating AI into their research from a wide range of perspectives, examining how it can be used in legal systems and how the law should respond to AI’s growing reach. Recent faculty scholarship includes Jane C. Ginsburg, Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, exploring questions surrounding AI, copyright, and deepfakes; Benjamin L. Liebman, Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Intellectual Life, looking at the use of artificial intelligence in Chinese courts; and Wexler examining the implications of AI in criminal investigations and evidence.

To bolster the work of faculty and support students, the Law School is planning a series of events related to AI and the law and offering students additional resources, including access to Harvey and Legora, AI platforms built specifically for the legal profession. The Li Lu Law Library will also play an important role, with the Law School’s legal research librarians training and providing guidance to students to help them navigate AI resources. 

Tackling Big Questions

Now that AI @ CLS is underway, there is also a question about what comes next. 

Beyond its transformative potential as a productivity tool, AI raises profound questions with wide-ranging implications for society—about democratic institutions and the rule of law, individual privacy and civil rights, human knowledge and economic inequality, labor and economic opportunity. 

“Columbia Law School always aims to ask and answer the big questions. We provide our students with a rigorous legal education, equipping them with the tools to frame debate and discussion on the most urgent issues of our time,” said Dean Abebe. “I am confident that Columbia Law School will help shape the application of AI, not just in the classroom and the legal academy, but also in society at large.”