Bocconi brings AI into legal education

Bocconi’s School of Law is launching a collaboration programme with some of the leading international players in the field of artificial intelligence, with a view to integrating the use of legal AI into the training of future legal professionals. Agreements with Harvey, a US-based company, and Legora, a Swedish company, will enable students, lecturers and researchers in law and global law to access artificial intelligence platforms designed for legal work from the start of the new academic year. The aim, explains a statement from the Milan-based university, is to train students to use it competently, with a critical eye, attention to sources, an awareness of technological limitations and respect for professional responsibilities.

Harvey will provide students, lecturers and researchers with access to artificial intelligence agents and tools for contract analysis, regulatory compliance, litigation and other legal activities. Legora will contribute to the project an agent-based operating system for legal work, which supports lawyers in researching, reviewing and drafting documents on complex matters. The collaboration with Lexroom, an Italian platform, will provide support for initiatives relating to Italian law. Lexroom will be involved in legal advisory services and workshops on drafting legal texts in Italian, providing tools for legal research and the drafting of legal texts based on verified sources.

“Artificial intelligence is not a peripheral issue for legal education: it represents a structural transformation of the way in which the law will be practised in the coming years,” says Pietro Sirena, director of the Bocconi School of Law. “Our responsibility is to avoid both naive enthusiasm and defensive rejection. We must teach students to use these tools whilst knowing how to verify sources, understand the risks, assess the quality of the outputs and remain firmly grounded in the legal method. With this initiative, we aim to make the Bocconi School of Law an advanced laboratory for experimentation and innovation in legal education.”

The programme will include a public event in October, featuring a forum on the future of legal education in the age of artificial intelligence.