UC Law SF's LexLab Trains Lawyers on AI Law and Practice
UC Law San Francisco launched a weeklong certificate program in March that brings practicing lawyers and legal professionals into direct contact with the technologists and policymakers shaping AI regulation and deployment. The Law and Artificial Intelligence Certificate program, now in its second year, selected just over two dozen participants from across the country and internationally to examine how AI works, how it's regulated, and what it means for legal practice.
The program addresses a straightforward gap: lawyers advising clients need practical grounding in AI's technical foundations and its legal implications, but few training programs exist for working attorneys. Tal Niv, UC Law SF's director of applied innovation, conceived the program to fill that need.
Who Teaches It
Twenty instructors led sessions across the week. They included counsel and founders from Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and GitHub, alongside academics and policymakers. Adjunct Professor Cornelia Kutterer, who previously led Microsoft's Responsible Tech and Competition team in Europe, helped design the curriculum and recruit instructors.
"What makes this program unique is the caliber and diversity of the instructors," Kutterer said. "Participants are learning directly from people who are making real-time decisions about how AI is developed, deployed, and governed."
What Lawyers Learn
The curriculum covers how AI systems actually function, then moves to governance, intellectual property, privacy, and risk management. Participants examined real applications across jurisdictions and heard from regulators, founders, and practicing attorneys working on these issues now.
Sessions addressed areas lawyers encounter regularly: product liability, compliance, privacy, and intellectual property. The program also examined how AI is already being integrated into legal workflows, from law firms to courts to corporate boardrooms.
Participants earned 32 hours of continuing education credit required by the California State Bar for licensed attorneys.
Beyond Technology
Professor Robin Feldman, director of UC Law SF's Center for Innovation, delivered a keynote examining both the promise and risks of AI breakthroughs. She highlighted how systems now perform tasks once thought uniquely human, while raising urgent questions about regulation, accountability, geopolitical competition, job displacement, intellectual property, and misinformation.
Professor Paul Belonick explored AI ethics through Stoicism, a philosophy popular in Silicon Valley. He pressed participants on a basic question: "Are the goals and virtues of AI currently being suggested by Silicon Valley and its version of Stoicism truly the human goals we wish to pursue?"
Who Attended
Participants came from law firms, startups, nonprofits, and academia. Sammy Zeer, a global indirect tax manager at Expedia Group, said the program "offered a grounded exploration of both the transformative potential and the real risks" of AI.
Ben Whitlach, director of customer success and legal specialist at Alumni, a venture capital software company, said the program helped him understand how lawyers can integrate AI into daily work. "It helped demystify how modern AI systems work and how they are beginning to transform legal workflows," he said.
Jeff Huang, associate chair of the computer science department at Brown University, traveled to gain perspective from lawyers and policymakers. "I appreciated hearing the many approaches, from legal practitioners, to the staffers who wrote some of the bills, to international policymakers," he said.
Next Sessions
UC Law SF plans to hold the next certificate program in July. The center is also planning to offer the program internationally, including in Tokyo, through collaborations with law schools abroad.
For lawyers seeking foundational training on AI, see AI for Legal or explore an AI Learning Path for Paralegals covering document review, contract analysis, and legal research automation.
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