Written by: Gloria Kosir

Dawn Barker Anderson, professor of Legal Analysis, Writing and Research (LAWR), director of the Iowa Law Writing Center, and the Ferguson Carlson Fellow at the University of Iowa College of Law, recently published an article in LexisNexis’ Law 360 Pulse.

The article, “Teaching Associates To Write Well With Responsible AI Aid,” is co-written by Julie Schrager, the legal and business writing coach and advisor at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. The duo presents a “first thinker, AI, last thinker” framework that reserves final and initial analysis for the associate and artificial intelligence tools for the finetuning in the “middle.” 

The authors encourage firms to support their associates to engage in independent thinking and writing while using AI. They wrote, “By ensuring associates remain the first thinker and the last thinker, while using AI intentionally in the middle, firms can embrace AI's efficiencies without sacrificing the judgment clients hire lawyers to provide.”