Implications and challenges for the training of lawyers in the PUCE before the emergence of AI

Abstract

The use of AI, as well as any other technological tool and innovative methodologies, must be aligned with the achievement of the competencies of legal trainees, provided for in the respective Law degree study plans. Hence, AI for academia has many implications and challenges to which the responses are still lagging behind and which, therefore, require decisive actions on the part of all academic actors, to achieve, through the teaching-learning process, the training of multiliterate professionals.

The use of AI, as well as that of any other technological tool and innovative methodologies, must be aligned to the achievement of the competencies of trainee lawyers, provided for in the respective curricula of the law degree. Hence, AI for the academy has many implications and challenges to which the answers are still lagging behind and that, therefore, require decisive actions by all academic actors, to achieve, through the teaching-learning process, the formation of multiliterate professionals.

This article, from a theoretical-conceptual, analytical, interpretative and critical perspective, based on the experiences of both authors, has as general objective to raise awareness of the implications and challenges that the irruption of AI implies for the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador; and as specific objectives: 1) Identify the opportunities and threats regarding the development of competencies, and legal and ethical conflicts, among others, by the use of AI in the Law career; and, 2) Propose standards so that the use of AI, in the Faculty of Law, guarantees, on the one hand, the adequate development of transversal or generic and disciplinary or specific competencies; and, on the other hand, the respect of ethical and Christian principles and values. Such standards refer to: a solid axiological framework; permanent adaptation to digital transformations; quality; creativity, innovation and healthy curiosity; training and coaching, with motivation and incentives; pedagogical supervision; and, progressiveness.