Re-Coding Legal Education: Global Minds in a Digital World

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and legal education, arguing that digital disruption, while significant, need not be dystopian. Drawing on personal experience and empirical research, the text critiques the technosolutionist narratives surrounding tools like Generative AI, highlighting their limitations and risks-especially when they bypass the human, reflexive and interactive core of legal training. Instead, the chapter advocates for a critical, integrated and human-centeed approach to AI in higher education, where emerging technologies become a "thematic platform" for research and training rather than a standalone fix. Two case studies from IE University Law School illustrate how legal education can be re-coded: the Lawtomation Centre shows how AI can help revisit foundational legal concepts integrating them into cross-disciplinary collaborative projects, while survey data from the LawAhead Center highlights how lawyers understand innovation as a blend of technology and, crucially, interpersonal skills. Ultimately, the chapter calls for a pedagogical model that embraces comparative reasoning, fosters digital and legal literacy and reaffirms the role of universities as vibrant hubs of human flourishing, creativity and accountable deliberation in a global environment shaped by algorithms.

Keywords: legal education, artificial intelligence, generative AI, digital disruption, MOOC, EU law