In 2026, for the first time, Australian law schools will graduate students whose entire degrees were undertaken in the shadow of ChatGPT. It is difficult to overstate the significance, writes Professor Catherine Renshaw.
AI changed how these students were assessed (via old-school, invigilated, handwritten exams, or vivas and moots, rather than essays or take-home exams); what they learnt (e.g., new ethical prescriptions around the use of AI in litigation; use of AI in legal research; data security; algorithmic bias); how they learnt (through virtual reality simulations, chatbots, AI-driven personalised instruction strategies and feedback); and their idea of the professional world into which they were entering.
It is this last issue that causes law schools the most concern, and which presents the greatest challenge.
The class of 2026 will start their careers in a profession where the market is already thinning for the kind of labour-intensive, large-scale legal activities traditionally done by first-year junior lawyers (discovery, due diligence, contract review); where financial pressure on small and medium-size law firms is leading firms to question the high cost of training new lawyers to be productive; where the kinds of legal skills taught at university (if skills are taught at all) are probably not the skills the profession will be demanding in five or 10 years; and where the prediction is that the overall volume of legal work that requires lawyers will diminish, as more areas of practice adopt AI systems for more and more kinds of matters. In short, a world of profound uncertainty.
How have Australian law schools responded to the uncertainty that their students face?
The answer, for the most part, is too slowly, too conservatively, and too late.
Almost a decade ago, the NSW Law Society produced a report (the Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession, the “FLIP” report), which recommended that law schools consider adopting a new range of skills and areas of knowledge for a new era. These included: technology; practice-related skills (e.g. collaboration, advocacy/negotiation skills); business skills/basic accounting and finance; project management; international and cross-border law; interdisciplinary experience; resilience, flexibility, and ability to adapt to change. Since then, students have continued to plead for an education that covers critical skills for real-life practice and training in technology and innovation.
Yet these areas remain on the periphery of most law programs. They are taught (if they are taught at all) as optional electives. In terms of nurturing qualities such as resilience, flexibility, and adaptability, few legal academics consider this to be their job. Many academics would not know where to start.
What would doing better look like for law schools?
First, it would look like having better data. There are 40 law schools in Australia, producing an estimated 15,000 law graduates every year. We do not know how many of these students get work in the legal profession, how long they remain in the legal profession, whether they end up doing the sort of work they wanted to do or imagined themselves doing when they signed up to law school, or whether the things they learned in law school helped them get a job, keep it, and thrive.
Law deans cling to the comforting belief that law is a good “generalist degree” that provides pathways to other rewarding professions (banking, finance, human resources, marketing, journalism, policy advice, legal tech) for students who do not want or cannot find a job in the legal profession. But we do not have the data that would tell us whether this is actually true. The last national survey of Australian law students and career paths was carried out a quarter of a century ago.
Second, doing better would look like a clear-eyed appreciation of the economic reality of students’ lives, and a responsible approach to providing a degree that gives students the kind of return on investment they deserve. The average law degree costs almost $70,000 – not including textbooks, travel costs, student amenities fees, or accommodation. It also costs time – time in which students are not earning a full-time wage (though many work extraordinary hours while also studying full-time), and time in which they are not pursuing other things that might be more profitable, have a more secure future, or be more rewarding.
In ages past, it might have been possible to extol the virtues of a university education as a good in and of itself, as a place where exciting ideas are debated, inspiring professors ignite intellectual passion in their students, and lifelong friendships are forged. But it is difficult to make this case in a world of online lectures, constrained university budgets, strictures on freedom of speech, and overworked (if not outright exploited) casual academic staff.
Finally, doing better would mean taking seriously the responsibility to develop the moral capacities of our students and nurture their orientation to honesty, justice, and fairness. Our students live in a world shaken by disinformation, assaults on the Rule of Law, and injustice. Part of our job is to bolster hope by showing students that there are ways to make government accountable, enable access to justice regardless of wealth, privilege, or power, and defend democratic freedoms, including freedom of speech.
There has never been a more important time for law schools to step up.
Professor Catherine Renshaw is the dean of the law school at Western Sydney University.
