Law schools in Canada and the US are increasingly moving to restrict artificial intelligence tools in first-year classrooms, but a growing counterargument suggests the restrictions may do more harm than good.
A consensus has emerged at many institutions that AI has no place in teaching the core first-year curriculum. The University of Chicago has banned AI in required 1L courses, and other schools are following that lead. Some professors have also prohibited laptops entirely, seeking to shield students from any AI assistance during their foundational year.
Related: Wednesday’s Hottest CanLII Decisions August 2026
The Case for Struggle
Proponents of these restrictions argue that first-year law school must impose difficulty on students. Michael Plaxton, a legal education scholar, frames the reasoning this way: “The case for law schools must be premised on the value of imposing slowness and struggle on students. Otherwise, there is simply no way to explain why students should not acquire a bespoke, individualized legal ‘education’ by plugging prompts into Claude or ChatGPT.”
The University of Chicago policy describes “the value of effortful struggle” during 1L as essential to building a foundation in law. The theory holds that students can only develop solid legal reasoning by grinding through case law without assistance, and any reliance on AI would prevent that foundational work. Plaxton uses the term “never-skilling” — borrowed from medical education literature — to describe what he believes happens when students use AI during training. They learn less than they would otherwise.
Related: Shadow AI threatens Canadian court system
A Different View Emerges
Other legal educators are pushing back against this consensus. They argue that first-year law school differs fundamentally from other domains where “never-skilling” has been documented. The Juris Doctor degree in Canada and the US presents a unique challenge: it is essentially a bachelor’s degree missing Law 101. Students enter expecting foundational instruction but instead find themselves thrust into advanced coursework without basic orientation to the discipline.
Incoming 1Ls are often asked to read 15 to 20 cases per week, frequently without headnotes or summaries to guide them. The reality is that many students spend their first two to three months confused and disoriented. By the time they begin understanding how cases are structured and what judges are actually saying, the course has already moved on to new material.
Related: Wednesday’s Top CanLII Cases for July 2026
Some educators believe AI tools could help students find their footing faster. Rather than banning AI, they suggest encouraging first-year students to use it to create 400 to 600-word case summaries and to query chatbots about the basic contours of decisions. The argument is that this would demystify the material earlier and free up mental bandwidth for higher-order skills like issue-spotting and legal argumentation.
For students arriving less prepared than in previous generations — fewer than 16 percent of young people read for pleasure daily, and many struggle with long-form text — the current approach may be asking too much without providing enough scaffolding. AI could serve as that scaffolding, helping students grasp essential concepts sooner rather than later.
