While generative artificial intelligence tools can draft emails, memos, and briefs, and suggest avenues for legal research, law students should still learn how to do their own legal research and how to evaluate the results of their research for themselves as well as express the results of their research in their own words. Analyzing information for oneself is an important skill to use to combat any biases and hallucinations output by the generative artificial intelligence tool and a useful skill for the practice of law. The following observations on how to overcome students’ lack of knowledge in an area, how to overcome students’ perception that an impressive-looking user interface means the information provided via the interface is complete, and inclusion of students in the creation of rubrics for assignments are adapted from remarks that I made during a panel discussion entitled Beyond Point and Click Instruction: Teaching Analysis in Legal Research on July 20, 2025 during the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting and Conference.

Image created by DALL-E-3.

Overcome a lack of knowledge by gaining foundational information.

When law students lack knowledge in a subject area, they may be tempted to rely on the information contained in initial results and believe the answers provided by artificial intelligence overviews alongside search results in online platforms are complete. Students can overcome this lack of knowledge by searching within a variety of platforms and sources and comparing their search results across platforms. In addition, students should read the information contained in more conventional sources such as treatises, horn books, and practice manuals to gain a greater understanding of the subject matter and overcome the barrier of lack of knowledge. When law students have foundational information, they can more readily analyze information for accuracy and completeness.

Overcome being impressed by the user interface of a tool by evaluating the information that the tool provides.

When law students see a user interface of a generative artificial intelligence tool or search engine, it is easy for them to become impressed by how the platform organizes items by subject or source, creates charts to provide a visual representation of how information is related or not related to other information, and provides summaries of information within a matter of seconds. To overcome the barrier of being impressed by a sophisticated user interface, law students should evaluate whether the information is complete, accurate, and relevant at a minimum (the Meriam Library of California State University, Chico provides a tool for evaluating the currency, relevancy, authority, accuracy, and purpose, of information)¹ and search in multiple platforms and compare information found from a variety of sources (a practice that I promoted in an earlier post for this blog² and provided an example of in the RIPS Law Librarian Blog)³. When evaluating summaries of information, retired law librarian Jean O’Grady notes that lawyers can avoid being misinformed by reading the information themselves and not relying on summaries generated by others.⁴ While some instructors, in aiming to get students to do their own thinking, have prohibited the use of generative artificial intelligence tools and other similar technology in their classrooms,⁵ such a prohibition would be difficult in the legal research classroom for which web-based research is a necessity. A more workable solution for a legal research classroom is to encourage students to evaluate information sources on their own and to think about how they can use generative artificial intelligence tools without allowing these tools to do their thinking for them.⁶

Including students in the process of creating rubrics helps students to sharpen their analytical skills.

Including students in the assessment process helps them to hone their analytical skills. One way of assessing students’ work is by using a rubric. Rubrics allow instructors to provide clear expectations to students and save time in grading students’ work which leads to the provision of timely feedback.⁷ Including students in the rubric-creation process allows a collaboration with students that leads to better teaching⁸ and also improves students’ analytical skills. In the past, I have created the rubric for evaluating students’ presentations in Advanced Legal Research with the students. Creating the rubric together allows students to analyze the important skills and sources that they will need to complete the assignment successfully. There are many books that thoroughly explain how to create rubrics and provide examples, however, one of my favorites is Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning by Dannelle D. Stevens and Antonia J. Levi. I discussed rubrics in greater detail and provided additional resources for creating rubrics in the CALIcon 2019 presentation entitled Backwards Design: Assessment, Alignment, Quality Matters, and Online Learning Consortium.⁹

There is a lot of information to be evaluated and while it is tempting to allow search engines and generative artificial intelligence tools to determine the accuracy, relevancy, and completeness of information, it is not a temptation that law students who are studying to become lawyers should succumb to. A search engine or generative artificial intelligence tool is not a substitute for thinking for oneself. In addition, instructors who are evaluating the research skills of law students can use the creation of a rubric as a teachable moment to think about why research skills and sources are important.

1. Meriam Library, California State University, Chico, Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP Test (Sept. 17, 2010), https://library.csuchico.edu/sites/default/files/craap-test.pdf [https://perma.cc/VZY3-UYF6].[↩]
2. Latia Ward, Google’s New Features and a Reminder to Search Within a Variety of Platforms, Information and Law (May 29, 2025), https://informationandlaw.wordpress.com/2025/05/29/googles-new-features-and-a-reminder-to-search-within-a-variety-of-platforms/ [https://perma.cc/F2Z8-4EJA].[↩]
3. Latia Ward, Guest Post: Thoughts on Teaching Critical Information Literacy and Thinking Outside the Box*, RIPS Law Librarian Blog (Dec. 6, 2023), https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2023/12/06/guest-post-thoughts-on-teaching-critical-information-literacy-and-thinking-outside-the-box/ [https://perma.cc/BC66-GX9A].[↩]
4. Jean O’Grady, Generative AI Risk in Legal Research: Is the Fault in the Technology or Ourselves? Answer is Both, Dewey B Strategic (July 1, 2024), https://www.deweybstrategic.com/2024/07/generative-ai-risk-in-legal-research-is-the-fault-in-the-technology-or-in-ourselves-answer-is-both.html [https://perma.cc/9688-LSHG]. O’Grady asserts, “Over the years, I have discovered mistakes in such revered tools as Westlaw headnotes and Shepard’s citators. The solution has always been the same – a lawyer must read the underlying authorities and draw their own conclusions.”[↩]
5. Allie Lopez, Saying No to AI in Education, Front Porch Republic (Dec. 4, 2024), https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/12/saying-no-to-ai-in-education/ [https://perma.cc/7X4P-E6W9].[↩]
6. See Robert Diab, Should We Restrict the Use of AI in Law School? Slaw (July 1, 2025), https://www.slaw.ca/2025/07/01/should-we-restrict-the-use-of-ai-in-law-school/ [https://perma.cc/W8J3-JN3K]. Diab says, “The choice is to leave students to their own devices to try to figure out how to make effective use of AI—and hope they don’t misuse it—or to meet them where they’re at and try to help them foster good over bad uses of AI.”[↩]
7. Dannelle D. Stevens & Antonia J. Levi, Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning 14-15 (2013).[↩]
8. Id. at 14 citing Rosemary S. Cafarella & M. Carolyn Clark, Development and Learning: Themes and Conclusions in New Directions for Adult Continuing Education (Rosemary S. Cafarella & M. Carolyn Clark eds. 1999), https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.8411.[↩]
9. Patricia Baia, Latia Ward, & Margaret “Meg” Butler, Backwards Design: Assessment, Alignment, Quality Matters, and Online Learning Consortium, YouTube (June 13, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvOqZ1KESbA&list=PLbHXrwmlOuqmjjGydydT9Tl-u1d3N1bxu&index=6.[↩]