The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU has announced that it will permit applicants to use AI tools for their applications.
Applicants must certify that they used AI and that the information they put down on their application is accurate.
Several factors led to the college of law allowing for AI, including its role in the real world.
That’s according to Gary Marchant, an ASU professor and the director of the Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
“I think the main one is that we realize that AI and generative AI is being used now in all aspects of life and particularly in the practice of law, and we want to train our students to operate and be effective in the real world, and that means using these types of tools," he said.
Marchant said allowing the technology would create an “even playing field” among prospective students. He discussed the future status of law schools and their implementation of AI policies.
“These technologies are gonna get just better and better, more and more powerful, and students and lawyers who use this will be the ones who succeed. So I think every law school eventually is going to have to go to this type of policy, whether it’s this year or next year or two years from now,” he said.
Marchant also said Stacy Leeds, ASU Law dean, was a proponent of the ASU policy.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to update that applicants must certify if they used artificial intelligence tools in their applications.
