Law360 (August 17, 2026, 4:52 PM EDT) -- The University of Georgia School of Law will now require students to complete a technology course and has mostly banned electronic devices in first-year courses, making it the latest U.S. law school to set policies on how instructors and students can use artificial intelligence.

Usha R. Rodrigues, the law school's dean, told Law360 Pulse on Friday that the law school has updated its handbook to require students to take a technological competency course.

"We feel very strongly that AI needs to be a part of every graduate's tool kit, no matter whether they're going into public service, they're going to be a public defender, a prosecutor, a lawyer doing M&A work on Wall Street," Rodrigues said. "We wanted to make sure that each student graduated with this sort of tech competency that's the ability to use technology wherever they choose to practice."

The law school in Athens, about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, also banned electronic devices in first-year courses unless a professor allows them.

"There is a sentiment among the faculty that I share that we need to emphasize students being able to be present in the classroom, focus and really learn to build those critical thinking skills that will be so important, no matter what type of practice and no matter how AI develops," Rodrigues said.

The University of Georgia School of Law is the latest institution to adopt policies on the use of AI.

The University of Chicago Law School has banned electronic devices from classrooms, with some exceptions, while giving students and instructors more room to experiment with AI in upper level elective courses, the law school announced in July.

Dean Adam Chilton told Law360 Pulse that there was no practical way to allow devices in class while preventing them from being used for AI.

Columbia Law School said this month that it has adopted a new policy on the use of artificial intelligence, allowing its use to support learning and for specific functions while restricting its role in creating written work or coming up with original arguments and legal analyses.

Columbia also leaves some decisions on AI use to the discretion of its faculty, saying it expects "that students will encounter a range of approaches to AI across the curriculum."

The University of California, Berkeley School of Law, by contrast, banned virtually all uses of AI on assignments submitted for credit, including conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating and editing, although professors can adopt their own policies.

Rodrigues said the University of Georgia didn't want to target the use of AI outside the classroom like UC Berkeley.

"We wanted to give professors that space [and] that oxygen to experiment," Rodrigues said. "It might be that professors do think that students should be free to use AI to help prepare for class, to run hypotheticals, to do mock quizzes, to change their notes into podcasts. We didn't want to stifle that sort of experimentation."

The University of Georgia School of Law said that while submitting AI-generated text as original work is academic dishonesty, students can use AI to study or brainstorm unless a professor specifically bans those uses, according to its website.

The University of Chicago Law School allows students to use AI for research, but not writing, in their first-year legal writing work.

Chris Hoofnagle, professor of law in residence at the University of California, Berkeley law school, and faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, told Law360 Pulse on Monday that he thinks the law school didn't want to ban electronic devices in first-year students because they wanted to be mindful that some students with disabilities use assistive technology.

"I think our faculty was sensitive to the idea that you could have a situation where you ban devices, but then someone with a disability is allowed to have a device and we didn't want to have that situation where those people with disabilities were in a sense outed by the presence of a device," Hoofnagle said.

Hoofnagle, who is also of counsel at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP, said that students at the University of California, Berkeley law school, are still allowed to use AI for gaining a better understanding of material, but they're not allowed to use AI for assignments or exams. He also noted that the law school's policy is also a default policy that professors can change.

"Our eyes are on continuing to deliver students who can engage in sharp legal analysis and reasoning and the tools of the practice are going to change," Hoofnagle said. "That's just part of having a profession, but our core job is training people to engage in legal reasoning. That's what we're focused on."

Rodrigues said students will continue to have access to accessibility and testing accommodations, including technology accommodations.

"Our goal is to empower our faculty to make the pedagogical choices that best serve their classroom goals," Rodrigues said. "Accommodations vary, and by their nature some are more visible than others. I know our professors are actively experimenting with ways to ensure access and create a learning environment that serves all our students."

Rodrigues said the University of Georgia School of Law also didn't want to offer an AI certificate.

Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, for example, created a new concentration focused on artificial intelligence and the law, the law school announced in March. The concentration aims to develop expertise in AI and other emerging tech.

Emory said this concentration also builds on its existing AI-focused programs, like its AI.Humanity Initiative and its Center for AI Learning.

For Rodrigues, though, the University of Georgia School of Law wanted to adopt an approach that acknowledges how AI is impacting the legal profession.

"It's going to affect every graduate, so we didn't want to give the impression that this was just a specialization that you could choose or choose not to do," Rodrigues said. "I don't think it's a choice. These technologies are here to stay and are revolutionizing the practice of law."

Christian Turner, associate professor and leader of the law school's AI committee, told Law360 Pulse on Friday that the technology competency course requirement is important for all students.

"We think that all students need to be prepared to practice either with these tools or to participate in the public debate over the use of AI and its regulation," Turner said. "There's a part for many, many people to play in these very uncertain times, and one of the reasons we have lawyers is to deal with moments of social uncertainty like this — to sort through a lot of the difficult issues, and we want all of our students to be prepared to do that."

Turner — who is also an AI and society fellow of the Center for AI Safety, a San Francisco-based nonprofit — said that the law school faculty has been discussing AI since ChatGPT was launched, while these changes are the culmination of work in the 2025-2026 academic year.

"There was this old adage that planning is everything and the plan is nothing," Turner said. "I think it's really important at a time of a lot of change like this to think mindfully about what you're trying to do and to develop a plan, but also to hold to it loosely enough that you can respond to changing conditions."

Turner said that the law school's path forward is not set in stone by any means.

"My sense is that my colleagues and the administration — we really think we've got a good path forward here, but we are also absolutely willing to adapt on the fly as conditions change," he said. "I want to inculcate that same nimble spirit of experimentation and embrace change to our students."

--Additional reporting by Andrea Keckley and Jake Maher. Editing by Robert Rudinger.

Update: This story has been updated with comments from Hoofnagle.

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