New Michigan Law Essay Prompt Asks Applicants to Use AI

In 2023, the University of Michigan Law School made headlines for its policy banning applicants from using generative AI to write their admissions essays.

Now, two admissions cycles later, the law school is not only allowing AI responses but actually mandating the use of AI—at least for one optional essay.

For those applying this fall, the law school added a supplemental essay prompt that asks students about their AI usage and how they see that changing in law school—and requires them to use AI to develop their response. (Applicants may write up to two supplemental essays, selected from 10 prompt options in total.)

“TO BE ANSWERED USING GENERATIVE AI: How much do you use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT right now? What’s your prediction for how much you will use them by the time you graduate from law school? Why?” the prompt asks.

Sarah Zearfoss, senior assistant dean at the University of Michigan Law School, said she was inspired to include such a question after hearing frequent anecdotes over the past year about law firms using AI to craft emails or short motions.

Indeed, in a survey released by the American Bar Association earlier this year, 30 percent of all law firms reported that they use AI tools; among law firms with over 100 employees, the share is 46 percent.

But many have been derailed by the same well-documented hallucinations that have plagued other AI users. Judges have sanctioned numerous lawyers over the past several years because their use of AI resulted in filings riddled with imaginary cases and quotations. That makes it all the more important to evaluate whether prospective students are able to use AI tools responsibly and effectively, the law school believes.

“That is now a skill that … probably not all legal employers, but big law firms, are looking for in their incoming associates,” Zearfoss said in an interview. “So I thought it would be interesting: If we have applicants who have that skill, let’s give them an opportunity to demonstrate it.”

Michigan Law still disallows applicants from using AI writing tools when they compose their personal statements and for all other supplemental essay questions, which Zearfoss hopes will allow her to compare applicants’ writing with AI’s assistance to their writing without it.

Is AI Inevitable for Lawyers?

Frances M. Green, an attorney with Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., who specializes in AI, told Inside Higher Ed that she believes the ability to use and engage with AI will eventually become a required skill for all lawyers. That doesn’t mean just using it to write court filings but also understanding how to manage the use of AI-generated evidence—say, the notes of a physician who uses AI technology to listen to and summarize appointments, rather than old-fashioned, handwritten doctors’ notes.

“I believe lawyers who use AI will replace lawyers who don’t,” she said. “I think that is very, very true. And judges even, in some jurisdictions, are encouraging the use of artificial intelligence tools.”

Even so, Green noted that she doesn’t really like how Michigan’s question is phrased, because applicants may be inclined to over- or understate how much they use AI based on what they think the admissions officer is looking for.

But Melanie Dusseau, an English professor at the University of Findlay in Ohio and a critic of AI, questioned the prompts’ utility in actually evaluating if a student is well-suited for law school.

“A law school application is a showcase of a student’s language abilities, their passion for lively rhetoric, logic, and captivating narrative. Do reviewers want to know how well future lawyers can prompt a bot [to] turn its beige copyslop into something compelling, or how well they can write? And which would be more important in a law school application?” she wrote in an email. “Since LLMs are fawning sycophants, at least tonally, I would imagine that future lawyers would do better to polish their persuasive writing chops without automation.”

Zearfoss is not a prolific AI user herself; once she decided she wanted to include an essay option related to AI, she recruited the help of another Michigan Law professor, Patrick Barry, who teaches a course on lawyering in the age of AI, to help compose the question itself.

She expects the essays will reveal uses of and perspectives on AI that she never would have been exposed to otherwise.

“I’m always excited when an essay teaches me something, but I don’t really expect that—it’s sort of a bonus, right?” she said. “But I think with this particular prompt, I assume a high percentage of the essays will be teaching me something.”