King's College London Puts AI Training at the Core of Legal Education
AI is moving from buzzword to baseline in legal work. The Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London will launch a 12-week online AI course in January, pitched as the first of its kind for a UK law school.
The program includes workshops with law firm partners and company IT leaders, plus free access to legal AI software. It has been developed with Harvey, Legora, Luminance and Lucio-tools increasingly showing up in practice and in-house teams.
What the course covers
- Technical basics of AI and how large language models actually work.
- How to instruct AI systems effectively ("prompt engineering") for legal tasks.
- Responsible use: confidentiality, bias, accuracy checks, and auditability.
- Hands-on sessions with law firm partners and technology executives, tied to real workflows.
According to the school, the goal is straightforward: make AI a practical skill for the next wave of lawyers, not a side project.
Why this matters for legal teams
Demand is rising to automate routine work-research, first drafts, document review, clause extraction, and summaries. Many firms are already testing or deploying AI for these use cases.
The trend line is clear. Thomson Reuters research shows 80% of legal professionals expect a high or transformational impact from AI within five years.
The tension: efficiency vs. entry-level roles
There's optimism that AI will strip out boilerplate work and let lawyers focus on strategy and judgment. There's also concern about pressure on junior roles where much of that boilerplate lives.
You're already seeing signals. Clifford Chance has said it will reduce certain business services roles in London-up to 50 positions affected, with about 35 roles changing scope-citing greater use of AI among several factors, as well as shifting work to hubs in India and Poland, including an operations hub opened last year in Warsaw.
What students are saying
King's reports students are excited but nervous. They already use AI tools daily and, in many cases, feel they see the potential more clearly than senior leaders who are still testing the waters.
New roles are opening, not just disappearing
There's a strong view from industry that AI will change the work mix rather than shrink it outright. Expect more demand for hybrids: legal technologists, legal operations professionals, and implementation leads for legal tech platforms.
These roles barely existed a decade ago but are now part of how firms and in-house teams scale intelligently.
Practical steps for firms and in-house teams
- Map your workflows: research, review, drafting, due diligence, DSARs, discovery. Flag where AI can assist vs. where human judgment is non-negotiable.
- Set guardrails: confidentiality rules, data retention standards, model usage policies, prompt/output logging, and second-lawyer review for client-facing work.
- Pilot with intent: pick a few high-volume tasks, define success metrics (time saved, error rate, cost per matter), and run structured A/B tests.
- Invest in skills: teach prompt patterns, fact-checking, and model limits. Train teams to verify sources and cite materials clearly.
- Preserve junior development: redesign workflows so associates still get core training-issue-spotting, drafting judgment calls, client communication.
- Strengthen governance: form a small committee across Legal, IT, Risk, and InfoSec; approve tools; maintain vendor scorecards; and review quarterly.
- Vendor diligence: security posture, data isolation, audit logs, integrations (DMS, M365), bias testing, update cadence, pricing predictability, and support SLAs.
- Track outcomes: hours saved, turnaround time, accuracy against gold standards, client feedback, and risk events. Report wins and misses transparently.
What this means for law students and early-career lawyers
Don't wait for formal training. Build fluency in prompt techniques, source verification, and tool evaluation. Learn how to translate legal tasks into clear, checkable instructions for AI.
Most importantly, sharpen the skills that compound: issue framing, commercial awareness, and client context. Those aren't automating away.
Bottom line
AI is becoming a core competence in legal work, not an add-on. King's College London moving first signals where the market is heading: lawyers who can use AI responsibly and effectively will move faster and spend more time on judgment and strategy.
If you lead a team, get ahead of this. Put training, guardrails, and measurement in place now-before clients start asking why your matters still take twice as long.
Further reading and training
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