Extract from Olga V. Mack’s article “AI Didn’t Replace Legal Judgment. It Exposed How Little We Teach It.”
There is a familiar anxiety running through legal education and law firms alike. If AI can analyze issues, draft language, and flag risks, what happens to legal judgment? Is it being replaced, diminished, or quietly outsourced?
The more uncomfortable answer is different. AI is not replacing legal judgment. It is exposing how little of it we explicitly teach.
This became clear during a series of empirical classroom pilots run through Product Law Hub using an AI-based legal coach called Frankie. The pilots were conducted in a product counseling course and designed to observe how students develop judgment-based legal skills when working alongside AI. The findings draw on quantitative engagement data and qualitative interviews conducted throughout the course.
What emerged was not a story about automation. It was a story about instruction.
