AI and the law: How Ohio State’s MSL teaches AI skills for law-adjacent roles

AI has had a massive impact on the legal field. From facilitating e-discovery and document review to instantly sorting data, AI tools are changing how legal teams operate.

To respond to a shifting field, Moritz College of Law instructors Rebecca Fordon and Sara Sampson have re-designed their law and technology elective for Master in the Study of Law (MSL) students who are ready to embrace AI.

Fordon and Sampson are subject matter expert librarians with years of experience teaching law students how to use technology for legal research. Rebecca Fordon is assistant director for innovation, research, and instruction in the Moritz Law Library, a member of the AI@Moritz faculty committee and one of the creators of AILawLibrarians.com. Sara Sampson is the assistant dean for information services, the director of the Law Library, and a senior lecturer at Moritz.

“Across the country, it’s often librarians who are teaching these technology courses, particularly in the law – likely because we are constantly learning new systems to teach to our students,” Fordon explained. “Sara and I have taught transferable literacy skills for decades and helped students figure out how specific tools will be useful to their studies.”

Now they’ve adapted their popular JD course specifically for legal studies students. Rather than focusing on the practice of law, Fordon and Sampson developed “Information Law and AI” for students who will be supporting their organization’s legal or compliance program or working in law-adjacent roles.

Specifically, the course provides an overview of AI and how it works, while helping students gain fluency with popular tools, such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. As part of the coursework, students determine the best use cases for artificial intelligence, as well as the risks, and how these scenarios can apply to their current or future legal careers.

“We want students to come out of the class with ideas that they can immediately take back to their workplaces,” Fordon said. “A lot of organizations are missing that expertise in AI and the law.”

Developing an AI law course

In order to future-proof their curriculum, Fordon and Sampson require students to bring in examples from current events or from relevant situations in their professional lives.

The class discusses the latest tools to hit the market, as well as the wins and risks they see in the headlines. While the tech and tools change by the day, Fordon and Sampson were intentional in developing course content that could remain relevant.

“One of the skills we teach them is how to translate knowledge and expertise in one AI product to another AI product. And that it doesn’t matter if things change, you can adapt with the change,” Sampson said.

“The platforms and the products will change over time. But there are skills, knowledge, and patterns that you’ll see that are always going to work.”

Developing a course that was adaptable and flexible, not just to the latest news, but to student interest, was paramount to Fordon and and Sampson.

“The class will continue to get stronger because we’ll be able to draw on what is important to the students and what use cases are meaningful to them,” Fordon said.

The risks of using AI

A big focus of the course is understanding the legal risks of AI. For example, AI tools can be prone to “hallucinations,” and data privacy experts have highlighted confidentiality concerns.

In response, early in the course Fordon and Sampson ask their students to break down the pros and cons of artificial intelligence and consider its best use cases. Then, they hone in on the specific legal risks – such as privacy, bias, security, or inaccuracies – while considering the ethics of AI.

“We give students a deployment scenario and then have them map all of those legal risks and how they interact,” Sampson said. “We’re preparing them for roles where they may need to identify the risk and then help their organization mitigate the risk.”

The benefits of an online course in an AI world

Flexible courses that are responsive to changing workforce needs are just one of the benefits of an online legal education from Ohio State. Instructors like Fordon and Sampson are dedicated to preparing their students to ethically employ the latest technology and in-demand skills in their legal careers.

While the tech and tools on the market may change, the education Ohio State students gain empowers them to tackle whatever comes next. “The end of our course is not going to be the end of AI. There are going to be constant developments that students will need to continue to learn about throughout their careers,” Fordon said. “So I really want to give them that mindset of how to continue to learn.”

Want to lead the AI conversation in your organization? Connect with an Enrollment Advisor to learn more about the online Master in the Study of Law (MSL) program at the Moritz College of Law.