A University of Missouri law professor is using AI technology to help train law students in negotiation techniques. Professor Renee Henson has trained a chatbot to stand in for the opposing party in legal negotiations.
Henson uses the chatbot she designed in her course “Lawyering: Problem Solving and Dispute Resolution.”
Henson created the chatbot to be an obstinate opposing counsel which students try to reach an agreement with.
“At the end of it. I was able to candidly share with students. To the extent you think this is unrealistic. It is really not, this is representative of some of the folks that you might come into contact with in practice,” Henson said.
Henson said she’ll keep adjusting the chatbot to reflect the unpredictability of two-party negotiations.
MU’s law professors have been researching ways that AI technology can be utilized in different areas of teaching law.
As new students come into the law profession there has been more of an emphasis on learning some of the new AI tools.
Dennis Crouch is an MU Law professor who is researching how AI can be used in law.
Crouch said he’s been using AI tools for making patent applications in his classroom.
“The students were able to take advantage of those tools to really rapidly draft patent applications. Doing things that in the past might have taken 40 hours, dropping that down to 2 or 3 hours,” Crouch said.
Crouch said one problem with using the AI tools is that they can still have errors in the work. He said it is important for his students to learn how to be editors of these AI drafts