LAW5500 · Legal technology and AI by design

Overview

This unit responds to the need for you to develop new ways of “thinking like a lawyer” in a technology-driven and AI-enabled legal environment. It focuses on the growing role of AI in legal practice, legal service delivery, client engagement, risk assessment and access to justice. You will work on projects based on business cases drawn from real-life contexts where AI intersects with law. These projects will be structured around a design thinking framework. Through these projects, you will critically examine the legal, ethical aspects of using AI technology, regulatory and client-centred implications of AI-enabled tools and digital systems. The unit develops your professional judgment, including your capacity to verify information, assess risk, evaluate AI-generated outputs and consider ethical issues of privacy, bias, accountability, transparency and confidentiality. The seminar and classroom components, together with assessment and feedback, will support you to build both conceptual understanding and practical skills in the responsible use of AI in legal practice while learning how design thinking can inform legal problem-solving in an AI-enabled environment.

Offerings

The Handbook publishes no offerings for this unit.

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Analyse the impact of technology, including AI, on legal practice, legal service delivery and access to justice.
2. Identify legal, ethical and professional risks arising from the use of AI technology in legal practice, including issues relating to privacy, bias, accountability, transparency and client confidentiality.
3. Apply structured approaches to evaluating AI legal technologies and AI-assisted tools in different legal practice contexts.
4. Communicate clearly and effectively about the use, benefits and limitations of legal technology to legal and non-legal audiences.
5. Critically evaluate AI-generated outputs and exercise independent legal judgment in assessing, verifying and refining those outputs.
6. Reflect on your own developing capability and professional responsibility in using AI technology to support ethical, effective and accessible legal service delivery.

Workload

The minimum total workload required to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit comprises a combination of scheduled learning activities and independent study appropriate for a 6 credit point unit. Learning activities may include teacher-directed learning, peer-directed learning, and online engagement.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.