AI goes to court

Olia | Sep 14, 2026Sep 14, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• discuss the growing role of AI in the legal industry;
• read an article about the first court case won by an AI law firm;
• review advanced vocabulary from the article.

In this lesson, students discuss reasons people seek legal advice and read an article about AI in the legal industry, focusing on a landmark case won by an AI law firm. They review vocabulary from the article (e.g. within the ballpark, sift through, locked out of, reprimanded) and use it to discuss statements about AI in different industries. Students also evaluate whether AI could ever fully replace lawyers.

WARM-UP AND ARTICLE

This lesson starts with a warm-up in which students think of reasons someone might need a lawyer. Afterwards, they look at the headline of an article about AI in the legal industry and discuss what they already know about the topic. Moving on, students read the first part of the article and name two things that made an AI law firm make history. They then find words and phrases in the text for specific points (e.g. tasks lawyers do, synonyms for ‘surprised’, ways to refer to important legal cases) and say if anything in this part of the article surprised them.

DISCUSSION AND VOCABULARY

In this part of the lesson, students read the second part of the article and decide whether it suggests AI will replace lawyers, underlining the parts that support their answer. They then brainstorm potential issues with using AI in the legal industry before reading the final part of the article to compare it with their own ideas. Moving on, students say which person or company mentioned in the article each statement refers to. Then, they discuss broader questions about AI in the legal industry, including its risks, benefits and use in their own country. Following that, students correct definitions for phrases from the article (e.g. within the ballpark, locked out of, reprimanded by, adds to) and use this vocabulary to complete further sentences about AI in business. Finally, they choose at least four of these statements and discuss whether they agree.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students complete gaps with one word each to finish statements about AI in the legal industry. Then, they choose three statements and say whether they agree. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it, cut it up and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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