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ChatGPT Goes to Law School
Get PDFHow well can AI models write law school exams without human assistance? To find out, we used the widely publicized AI model ChatGPT to generate answers to the final exams for four classes at the University of Minnesota Law School. We then blindly graded these exams as part of our regular grading processes for each class. Over ninety-five multiple-choice questions and twelve essay questions, ChatGPT performed on average at the level of a C+ student, achieving a low but passing grade in all four courses. After detailing these results, we discuss their implications for legal education and lawyering. We also provide example prompts and advice on how ChatGPT can assist with legal writing
The Many Faces of Modern Legal Realism
Get PDFThis work offers an overview of the consequences and implications of the work of the American Legal Realists. First, the article considers Brian Leiter’s naturalist understanding of the realist project and how he uses it as an occasion to argue for a generally naturalist approach to legal philosophy. Second, Frederick Schauer transforms a legal realist-like focus on the concerns of average citizens for legal enforcement to advocate for the view that coercion is central to understanding law. Third, self-styled New Legal Realists try to merge a realist-inspired search for the effects of legal rules with a more traditional respect for the importance of legal doctrine in understanding behavior within and in relation to law. Finally, with the comment, “we are all Legal Realists now”, the article discusses the ways in which the American Legal Realists have – and have not – significantly transformed legal thinking and legal education in the United States
January 6, Ambiguously Inciting Speech, and the Overt-Acts Rule
Get PDFA prosecution of Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol would have to address whether the First Amendment protects the inflammatory remarks he made at the “Stop the Steal” rally. A prosecution based solely on the content of Trump’s speech—whether for incitement, insurrection, or obstruction—would face serious constitutional difficulties under Brandenburg v. Ohio’s dual requirements of intent and likely imminence. But a prosecution need not rely solely on the content of Trump’s speech. It can also look to Trump’s actions: his order to remove the magnetometers from the entrances to the rally and his repeated attempts to join the crowd at the Capitol.
This Article proposes a requirement of overt acts for the prosecution of ambiguously inciting speech. Trump’s overt acts offer a principled basis for criminal liability for Trump’s speech, while preserving Brandenburg’s prophylactic approach to protecting against the overcriminalization of speech. The prosecutorial use of overt acts also accords with historical practice going back to the Founding, when the Framers, influenced by English practice, required evidence of overt acts for the most serious of crimes: treason. In an age of increasing political polarization and violence, drawing a line between permitted and prohibited by our political officials is of the utmost importance. This Article is an attempt to make that line clearer
Courts as Auditors of Legislation?
No full textThis Essay argues that the normative problem of determining a hierarchy of legal sources may be usefully understood in terms of mechanism design. Specifically, the normative problem proposes that legislation and judicial precedent operate complementarily; assuming the normative objective that the citizenry ought to be governed by legal rules that reflect the “will of the people,” judge-made law can function as an audit on the rules promulgated by elected legislatures. The two sources of law, working in conjunction, thereby correct the deficiencies inherent in either approach operating in isolation
