Generative AI and the Purpose of Legal Scholarship

Smith, Michael. “Generative AI and the Purpose of Legal Scholarship”. Massachusetts Law Review, vol 21, Issue 1, February 2026.

Concepts:  scholarly writing | AI non-instrumental scholarship | metrics vs. contribution | Legal scholarship | Cognitive deskilling 

Keywords:  Legal scholarship | Generative AI | Academic writing | Law schools | AI ethics

Smith argues that an instrumental view of legal scholarship — dominated by obsession with quantity, citations, and prestige hierarchies — obscures the detrimental effects that generative AI may have on the intrinsic value of writing and publishing. A deeper look at the fundamental purposes of legal scholarship, he contends, reveals that AI poses far more of a danger than a purely instrumental perspective suggests. This article makes the structural equivalent of Burzlaff’s argument for historians, in a legal studies context: the discipline’s essential contribution — interpretation, argument, ethical engagement with complexity — is precisely what AI cannot provide, regardless of its fluency at the surface level.

“An instrumental view of legal scholarship... obscures the detrimental effects that AI may have on the intrinsic value of writing.” (Smith, 2025, abstract)

“AI poses far more of a danger than a purely instrumental perspective suggests.” (Smith, 2025, abstract)

“The fundamental purposes of legal scholarship demand what AI cannot provide.” (paraphrase of Smith, 2025)