✍️By Emma Edney from Encode Canada.
Emma is a BCL/JD McCall MacBain Scholar candidate at McGill University. Her interests include ethical issues surrounding personal information in technology and the impact of AI on litigation work. Emma is a writer at Encode Canada and a junior editor for the McGill Health and Law Journal.
📌 Editor’s Note: This piece is part of our Recess series, featuring university students from Encode’s Canadian chapter at McGill University. The series aims to share insights from university students on current issues in AI ethics. In this article, Emma Edney examines how to navigate the ongoing entanglement between studying AI and the law.
Photo credit: Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a “hot topic” across all different types of employment and education. AI has been increasingly used in the legal profession, as demonstrated not only in law schools but with ripple effects into the courtroom. Although AI improves access to case information for law students, it risks reducing critical class engagement, such as logical reasoning and research skills. This is problematic because practising lawyers cannot depend on AI in the courtroom, and relying on AI during law school undermines the foundational skills the profession demands.
It’s no secret that AI is being used and promoted in law schools, for example, LexisAI+ (LexisNexis, 2025). LexisAI is an AI platform that helps law students and lawyers search case law, drafting documents, and anything under the sun that is covered in the legal sphere (LexisNexis Legal & Professional, 2023). In fact, more than a third of lawyers (36%) and almost half of law students (44%) have used it either personally or professionally (LexisNexis Legal & Professional, 2023). This over-reliance limits students’ independent development throughout law school and in their careers as lawyers. After graduating from law school and passing the Canadian Bar, lawyers cannot rely solely on AI to develop their arguments due to the ethical concerns of confidentiality with client information (Goodman, 2019). Even the Federal Court of Canada has mandatory declarations for AI-Generated Content because public confidence in the administration of justice might be undermined (Federal Court of Canada, 2024). Public confidence is illustrated by delivering reasoning to judgments, but also in client relationships between lawyers (Fine & Marsh, 2024). Having relationships with your client cannot be taught by AI because the interpersonal skills of client rapport is a skill learned from time spent during law school, or so it should be (Goodman, 2019). Consequently, students who depend on AI risk entering the practice without the necessary personal and emotional skills to function effectively.
The Canadian legal profession upholds high standards of integrity, equality, and collegiality exemplified in the Canadian Bar Association principles (Canadian Bar Association, 2025). Can this “high standard” be considered satisfied if law students and lawyers resort to using AI even if it will help with time efficiency for clients (Westfahl & Wilkins, 2017)? If yes, then shouldn’t clients be paying a lower fee due to less time spent on the file? Skills such as analytical thinking, legal reasoning, and the ability to react quickly during litigation can’t be done by AI (So, 2025). An American Study discovered that at least 58% of the time, LLMs struggle to predict their own hallucinations and accept incorrect legal assumptions using ChatGPT (Dahl, Magesh, Suzgun, & Ho, 2024). This is important because the purpose of law school is so that individuals can become competent lawyers who encompass those skills; thus, it would undermine the profession as a whole.
Some law schools could adopt wifi systems that block AI portals to prevent access to them on campus; however, this does not stop law students from accessing them at home. Therefore, law schools should integrate AI-focused courses to teach law students about the use and limitations of viewing AI as a tool, not as a reliance (Goswami, 2025). We see this integration in law firms, like Gowling LLP, which embrace AI by announcing publicly the use of AI in the firm to create client transparency (Gowling LLP, 2025). This matters because the legal system depends on public trust. Lawyers are expected to protect client information, given their training and oath. If clients learned their data was being put into an AI system, it could be seen as an ethical breach (Linna & Muchman, 2020). The clients might then question why they paid for legal services at all, arguing they could have used the technology themselves to save both time and money (McGinnis, 2014).
As discussed, there is a limit to what AI can replicate for law students and the bias that it can bring (Linna & Muchman, 2020). Once law students complete their education, they need to pass the Canadian Bar exam for a majority of provinces, except for other provinces like Alberta, who completed the Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) and PREP (CPLED, 2025; Ferguson, 2021). The Canadian Bar Exam is composed of written questions to test each individual’s understanding of the law. CPLED is very similar, but it has online modules instead of an official exam (CPLED, 2025). Both still qualify as the same level of admissibility to become a lawyer. To help combat the use of AI in law schools, the Canadian Bar Exam could adopt a practical skill component such as oral advocacy, negotiation, and client interaction to get at the root that AI cannot replicate, “people skills.” (Legg, 2024). In the United States, they have developed a pilot project about practical skills being adopted for their Bar Exam that Canada could pull as inspiration (Green, 2025). Recently, the Ontario Bar announced the possibility for their Bar Exam to be scrapped and replaced with a skills-based course, which mirrors Alberta (Weingarten, 2025). As well, British Columbia just started, as of September 2026, to join Alberta in CPLED (Carolino, 2025). Thus, adopting a skills-based approach in Canadian Bar Exams and courses to help guide law students invites the possibility that AI doesn’t have to be something avoided if proper barriers are in place (McKeith, 2023). I invite individuals like yourself to advocate that law schools and law firms can offer training on the use of AI so not to be scared of AI, as it is being used everywhere, nor will it replace lawyers (McKeith, 2023).
In the end, AI is here to stay. Due to the rapid growth of AI, it shines a light on the younger generation coming into the legal profession, which raises the question of how much can we hand over to technology before it undermines the profession and ethical concerns? From AI ethics perspectives, law schools need to ensure that AI is used as a tool to help with case research but not dependent on it since client information can slip through the cracks if training is not at the forefront. Society risks producing law students who can generate answers, but lack judgment and communication. At times, it matters most, whether with clients or in a courtroom before a judge. The real issue is whether we will draw that line now or only after it’s already been crossed.
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