Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Sunday urged the national law universities to move beyond merely responding to technological change and instead take the lead in determining how technology should reshape the legal system, with justice, fairness and human judgment remaining at its core.
Addressing the Vice Chancellors' Conclave 2.0 at National Law University, Jodhpur, the CJI said that the legal profession can no longer remain a late adopter of technology and rejected an outright prohibition of tools like generative AI in legal education.
"Academic integrity and the responsible use of artificial intelligence must become important components of curriculum and pedagogy. Change of this nature does not wait for institutional comfort," the CJI said.
Deep Dive
What steps should law universities take to integrate technology into legal education?
Why is the Chief Justice of India advocating for the use of technology in law schools?
How can students ensure they aren't overly reliant on AI tools in legal education?
The conclave was on the theme "Legal Technology and its Roadmap: Positioning Law as a Leader in Legal Technology".
The CJI said that technology was already reshaping the legal ecosystem, from drafting contracts and conducting due diligence to legal research, evidence management and dispute resolution.
{{/usCountry}}The CJI said that technology was already reshaping the legal ecosystem, from drafting contracts and conducting due diligence to legal research, evidence management and dispute resolution.
{{/usCountry}}He said that law schools have to become the first line of response to this transformation.
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The CJI said that graduates would increasingly work with tools capable of reading thousands of precedents within seconds, identifying legal and regulatory risks and supporting courts and dispute-resolution mechanisms.
However, he said, familiarity with technology alone would not be sufficient.
"A graduate who understands only the output of a technological tool would remain dependent on it, while one trained to question assumptions, verify conclusions and exercise independent judgment could use technology without surrendering responsibility," he said.
The CJI also addressed the growing debate over the use of generative AI in legal education.
While acknowledging legitimate concerns that students could become dependent on AI, lose the ability to construct arguments independently or mistake convincing-looking answers for accurate ones, he rejected an outright prohibition on such tools.
He advocated their transparent and supervised use in classrooms so that students learn both their capabilities and limitations.
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The CJI said that institutions that resist inevitable technological change risk losing their opportunity to shape it. He said that legal education should not stop at adaptation because adaptation merely responds to change after it has occurred.
"Instead, law universities should anticipate technological developments, shape their direction and ensure that technology evolves in service of law and its underlying values," the CJI said.
For this, he stressed collaboration among National Law Universities and called for serious research on algorithmic accountability, data protection, digital access to justice and the changing relationship between technology and dispute resolution.
"Let technology make legal institutions and services more capable, but let our values determine the direction in which that capability is used," he said, adding that innovation should make justice faster but never make it less fair.