University of Chicago Law School Bans Laptops and Phones in First-Year Classes to Combat AI Reliance

In higher education’s ongoing struggle to adapt to the realities of artificial intelligence, one of the nation's most prestigious institutions is taking a drastic step backward in classroom technology. Starting in the fall of 2026, the University of Chicago Law School will ban all laptops, tablets, and mobile phones from its first-year classrooms. The sweeping prohibition is the cornerstone of a new curriculum framework designed to force students to grapple with foundational legal concepts without the aid of digital shortcuts.[1][4][5]

The policy, detailed in a comprehensive strategy memo titled "Rethinking Legal Education in the AI Era," marks a significant shift in how elite institutions view the intersection of technology and learning. Rather than simply policing generative AI use through software detectors, UChicago is attempting to engineer an environment where relying on AI is structurally impossible during the most formative period of a lawyer's education.[2][4][5]

"Students will be there with a notebook and a pen and taking notes," said Adam Chilton, the dean of UChicago Law. The administration argues that the first year of law school—traditionally a grueling immersion into the Socratic method—requires a level of "effortful struggle" that modern technology actively undermines. By removing screens, the school hopes to foster an atmosphere where students are forced to engage in real-time debate, maintain eye contact, and develop the oral advocacy skills essential to the profession.[1][2][5][6]

The device ban will be piloted across all nine core first-year (1L) courses, including foundational subjects like Civil Procedure, Torts, Contracts, and Constitutional Law. Furthermore, all examinations for these courses will be conducted entirely in-class, using traditional methods without access to the internet, electronic files, or digital applications.[3][4][5][6]

Recognizing the practical challenges of a total digital blackout, the policy includes a few pragmatic exceptions. Professors are authorized to designate a rotating "classroom scribe"—a single student permitted to use a laptop to take comprehensive notes that are later shared with the entire class. Instructors can also temporarily lift the ban for specific, tech-enabled interactive activities like live polling, and the school will continue to provide electronic accommodations for students with documented disabilities.[2][4][5]

The underlying philosophy is rooted in the concept of "AI-resilient pedagogy." William Hubbard, chair of the Law School’s AI Committee, noted that while AI tools are highly effective at maximizing output and saving time in a professional setting, those same efficiencies actively disrupt the educational process. Foundational learning, the committee concluded, requires manual, unoptimized effort.[2][5][7]

UChicago’s approach highlights a growing philosophical divide among top law schools regarding how to handle the AI revolution. Earlier in 2026, the University of California, Berkeley School of Law implemented a much stricter, blanket prohibition. Berkeley’s policy bans the use of artificial intelligence for conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, or editing any work submitted for credit across all three years of study.[1][6]

Compared to Berkeley’s strict prohibitionist stance, UChicago is attempting to walk a nuanced middle path. The administration explicitly acknowledges that a total, permanent ban on AI is both unrealistic and a disservice to students. Graduates will inevitably enter a legal market where generative AI is a ubiquitous, expected part of daily practice.[2][4][5][6]

As a result, the UChicago device ban is strictly limited to the first year. Once students progress to their second and third years, the curriculum aggressively pivots toward AI integration. The school has already established an AI Lab designed to teach upper-level students not just how to prompt existing tools, but how to build and deploy their own specialized legal chatbots to improve access to justice.[4][5]

This integration extends to the school's Legal Research and Writing (LRW) program. Under the new pilot structure, students will be required to write their initial drafts entirely without AI assistance. However, they will then be explicitly instructed to use AI tools for subsequent research, revision, and preparation for oral arguments. Instructors will review both the student's original writing and their AI-assisted outputs, teaching them how to critically evaluate and supervise the technology.[2][5]

The push for this dual-track approach—manual foundation followed by technological integration—is heavily driven by feedback from the legal industry. Over the past year, UChicago consulted with law firm leaders, legal technology executives, and practicing attorneys. The consensus from employers was clear: they need junior associates who possess independent judgment and critical thinking, not just the ability to generate text.[2][4][5]

Law firms are increasingly frustrated by the influx of "AI slop" from new graduates who lack the foundational knowledge to spot errors in machine-generated work. This concern is not merely theoretical; over the past two years, multiple practicing attorneys have faced severe judicial sanctions after submitting court filings riddled with AI "hallucinations"—fabricated case law and misattributed quotes generated by chatbots.[3]

By forcing first-year students to learn the law manually, UChicago hopes to produce graduates who can act as effective supervisors of AI, rather than passive consumers of it. Clinical Professor Mark Templeton, a member of the AI committee, noted that early experiments with device bans in individual classrooms yielded overwhelmingly positive results. "People are focused on the discussion and on engaging with each other, and not just typing away and looking down at their screens," Templeton observed.[3][5]

Despite the pedagogical benefits, the transition is likely to be jarring for a generation of digital-native students. Many incoming law students have spent their entire academic lives taking notes on laptops and tablets. The sudden shift to handwriting has raised concerns about the speed of note-taking, the legibility of handwritten outlines, and the general accessibility of a purely analog classroom environment.[3]

The UChicago policy is part of a broader, panicked recalibration across higher education. From Brown University professors reinstating in-person, paper-based testing after uncovering massive AI cheating rings, to Princeton University modifying its century-old Honor Code to require proctored exams, institutions are realizing that the honor system is no longer sufficient in the generative AI era.[3]

Ultimately, UChicago’s strategy concedes that the specific software available today will likely be obsolete by the time current students pass the bar exam. Therefore, training students on the mechanics of today's AI is less important than equipping them with the analytical rigor to adapt to whatever technology comes next.[5][6]

"With AI disrupting higher education, our commitment to rigorous legal education also must mean openness to even rapid adaptation," the school's strategy memo states. By teaching students to think "with, without, and about AI," the institution is placing a massive bet that the most valuable asset in the law office of the future will still be a well-trained human mind.[1][3][6][7]