Technology and the Legal System Seminar

3 units

Enrollment Limit: 16. Seminar drop deadline: 11:59 p.m. on the day after the first class meeting. Technology has always shaped the legal system, but recent advances in computational text analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are fundamentally transforming both legal practice and the operation of governmental institutions. These changes are already influencing diverse areas such as discovery, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance. A particularly significant development is the emergence of foundation models and tools such as ChatGPT, which promise to automate legal tasks at an unprecedented scale. In this course, we will critically examine these new technologies, exploring current applications and evaluating their potential to transform additional areas of the legal system. We will also discuss potential benefits as well as risks—including questions of fairness, transparency, accuracy, and access to justice—posed by the increasing automation of legal processes. Grades will be based principally on written assignments, including three short response papers (4-6 pages each) and a longer seminar paper.