Artificial intelligence is encouraging some classrooms to return to traditional methods.

The University of Chicago Law School will require first-year students to keep their laptops closed during classes this fall. This policy forms part of a larger plan to help students build independent thinking abilities while artificial intelligence grows widespread in the legal profession.

The decision arrives as universities nationwide address how generative AI is changing higher education. Reports have highlighted cases at various institutions where administrators uncovered extensive AI-assisted academic misconduct, showing the challenges the technology poses for standard assignments and evaluations.

Instead of prohibiting AI completely, Chicago Law is updating its curriculum to distinguish between abilities students must master independently and those where AI tools can be incorporated.

"We need to make sure that the students are learning to think for themselves," said Adam Chilton, dean of the University of Chicago Law School. At the same time, he noted, "We can't just naively try to pretend that you can turn off AI or that students won't use it or they don't need to know it."

The school's updated plan features laptop-free first-year sessions, supervised in-person exams that block access to external resources, and oral presentations for key research papers to confirm students can articulate and support their ideas. It is also broadening AI education through legal writing classes, new AI-related courses, and student access to legal AI platforms such as Harvey and Legora.

Chilton observed that educators have been slow to adapt by continuing to assign take-home tasks that students might finish with AI "without thinking for yourself, without learning for yourself."

He added that incidents of AI-related misconduct at other schools have heightened worries that students might progress without gaining strong analytical abilities.

The difficulty lies in AI becoming essential to legal work. Law firms now expect new graduates to apply technology effectively and ethically, rendering a total prohibition impractical.

Chicago's method instead creates what Chilton described as "space for both of these modes of learning" by first developing students' unaided thinking skills and then instructing them on responsible AI use after those foundations are in place.