The flap over laptops

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What’s a law student without a laptop?

At the University of Toronto’s Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law, they’re about to find out.

As the new academic year begins, professors and administrators there have banned keyboard devices and artificial intelligence (AI) tools in some classes, believing this will lead to more engaged students with stronger critical-thinking skills.

But many of those law students, along with some practicing lawyers, are voicing opposition to the initiative.

The law school’s policy is intended to provide a consistent framework for individual faculty members this fall who decide to prohibit the use of keyboard devices in their classes, as some already have.

The school’s core mission is to facilitate “a profound intellectual transformation through which our students learn to think like lawyers, to reason carefully and collectively about and with the law,” Dean Christopher Essert said in a statement.

“Faculty members have expressed concern about the impact that increasing use of technology during lectures, including sophisticated AI tools and laptops used for near-verbatim note-taking, can have on this aspect of our academic mission. In particular, some forms of technology use may inhibit active and critical engagement with course content during class.”

Under the policy, not all classes will be laptop-free, Essert noted. But where professors prohibit them, students will be allowed to take handwritten notes on pen and paper or on a tablet with a stylus. Faculty will provide either AI-generated notes or those taken by student note-takers, class slides, speaker notes, annotated case lists, or a similar record of material covered in the class. Students with accessibility issues will be supported in consultation with their accessibility adviser.

The policy is facing strong pushback. Ishaan McLachlan, president of the Students’ Law Society (SLS), says that a survey completed last month by 240 of the approximately 640 students in the juris doctor program found that more than 76 per cent said it would not be beneficial to their legal education. 

The SLS represents JD candidates at U of T and is in discussions with the administration to address students’ concerns. In a recent email to students, the faculty’s administration said the policy will apply to at least 15 courses, including seven first-year courses and eight upper-year offerings. 

McLachlan says that’s fewer than initially expected. And while many support the overall aim, concerns have been expressed about “removing technology from the classroom when legal tech is increasingly important in the legal field.”

Students with a disability also fear the policy will make them feel more stigmatized. 

“This is particularly concerning as, at our law school, we have heard firsthand from disabled students that they have had negative experiences where some students perceive accommodations as an advantage,” said Ilhan Yusuf, co-executive of the Disabled Law Students’ Association.

Daphne Embry, a member of the class of 2028 who has been diagnosed with ADHD, is concerned about how the policy will make disabilities more visible in the classroom.

“The best equity is letting people do what works for them, not imposing arbitrary restrictions based on a professor’s preference,” she said in an email. 

“Reducing access to technology in classrooms has never improved outcomes for disabled students.”

The policy has also sparked a lively debate online among law students and practicing lawyers.

“Professors at Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law – University of Toronto seem to think they are running a kindergarten instead of a post-graduate professional program, if they think they can ban ordinary tools that their adult students have used for over a decade,” Vancouver lawyer John Trueman posted on LinkedIn.

On Reddit’s r/LawStudentsCanada forum, one contributor using the handle Usernameasteriks accused U of T of “copycatting” AI restrictions recently implemented by prestigious U.S. law schools at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and Columbia.

At Canadian law schools, approaches to laptops and AI vary, says Kristen Boon, president of the Council of Canadian Law Deans. At the University of Ottawa, where she’s the dean of the common law program, the decision has been left up to professors. 

“Some are banning laptops, many are not,” she said in an email. 

“Most of the conversation in the press is about generative AI, but, in fact, it is much more complex than that in legal education.”

Kristen Murray, a law professor and associate dean at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, has studied the use of technology in legal education. She says AI makes the laptop issue more urgent, but does not tip the balance decisively toward banning them. Research also hasn’t established a categorical advantage for handwriting.

“The real question should be what students are doing with their technology, not simply whether they have technology in front of them.”