Practice Ready, Future Ready
USF was the first law school in the country to integrate responsible AI training into the core curriculum. Here, you'll learn the tools and, more importantly, you'll learn the judgment.
AI Opens Doors. We Teach You Which Ones To Walk Through.
The best lawyers entering practice today know how to use AI, and also how to question it. At USF Law, you'll learn to work with these tools the way top practitioners do: critically, strategically, and with a clear sense of your professional obligations. Grounded in Jesuit values and a deep commitment to social justice, your legal education will prepare you not only to keep pace with a changing profession, but to help shape where it goes.
In Legal Research, Writing & Analysis, we explored how we can use AI to support our research process, to make our legal writing more effective, to develop the judgment to know when and how to use it ethically, and as a resource to practice our oral argument skills. I felt prepared going into my summer job knowing how to work with these constantly changing tools.”
Ruth Alcantara ’27
AI in the Core Curriculum
From your first semester to your specialization. AI learning isn't siloed into a single elective or certificate at USF Law. You'll encounter it across the coursework, in the contexts where practicing lawyers actually face it. You’ll then carry those skills into the area of law you choose to pursue.
Legal Research, Writing & Analysis
You'll learn to use AI to strengthen your research and sharpen your writing, and develop the professional judgment to evaluate what it produces.
Evidence
You'll work with litigation-focused AI tools to analyze claims, spot evidentiary gaps, and build strategies to admit or exclude evidence, the way trial lawyers do it in practice.
Professional Responsibility
You'll examine the real risks AI creates in legal practice: accountability for AI-assisted work, protecting client confidences, and understanding which duties no technology can fulfill on your behalf.
Electives
And as you start to define your path into the profession, you'll find legal technology thoughtfully integrated into electives like Contracts Drafting, Employment Law, and Negotiations, helping you build the skills your specialization requires.
AI Guiding Principles
USF’s guiding principles were shaped collaboratively by law students, faculty, the dean, and expert alumni. They reflect what you can expect from your education here, and they're reviewed and revised as the technology and our understanding of it continue to evolve. In the use of artificial intelligence, USF Law is committed to:
- Advancing the Legal Profession and Serving Society. We strive to use AI in ways that strengthen the legal profession and contribute meaningfully to the public good, while ensuring that it supports rather than replaces human judgment by lawyers, in pursuit of a just society. We seek to use AI responsibly in a way that minimizes its environmental impact, consistent with our commitment to caring for our common home.
- Promoting Equity and Access. We strive to teach and model the use of AI in ways that advance fairness and opportunity within our institution and the broader legal community.
- Maintaining Ethical Standards, Academic Integrity, and Academic Freedom. We uphold rigorous standards of ethics and integrity, grounded in our duties of professional responsibility and commitment to USF’s social justice mission. We affirm our commitment to academic freedom in how faculty integrate AI into legal education and practice.
- Developing Core Competencies for Evolving Practice. We develop in our students the foundational competencies essential to excellent lawyering, including accuracy, critical judgment, and creativity, to enable them to practice effectively in the evolving landscape of legal practice.
- Ensuring Transparency, Security, and Accountability. We commit to clear communication about how, when, and why AI is used in our educational programs. We work to safeguard the privacy and security of personal information in all AI-related activities. We maintain accountability for its appropriate implementation and outcomes, including regular review and revision of these principles as technology and our understanding of it continue to evolve.
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Center for Law, Tech, and Social Good
Join the next generation of lawyers, lawmakers, and policy-enforcers.
AI & Emerging Tech Law Certificate
Meet the demands of the complex and evolving technology law landscape.
