Goldberg Convenes Harvard Law School AI Committee As Donors Float Condensed J.D. Program

Harvard Law School Dean John C.P. Goldberg has convened a steering committee to shape the school’s response to artificial intelligence — and fielded repeated suggestions from top donors that the school condense its three-year J.D. program to two.

The committee began as a working group last fall and was elevated, with additional subgroups beneath it, shortly after, according to two professors familiar with the matter. The two-year idea has come up repeatedly at meetings of the Dean’s Advisory Council and Leadership Council, two Law School graduates said, as part of a running conversation about the school’s value proposition.

The committee has circulated a written set of guidelines to faculty and organized training sessions, according to one of the professors. The guidelines describe in-class written exams with access only to printed materials as the best way to AI-proof assessments and otherwise set a default that students may use AI roughly as they would a conversation with a friend, the professor said.

Goldberg briefed major law school donors on the group and its goals at a meeting in October 2025, the two graduates said. One was granted anonymity to describe a closed-door conversation.

R. Brian Timmons, who was present at the October meeting, said the two-year idea came from a donor rather than from Goldberg.

“I would characterize the 2 versus 3 years as more of an idea someone had, not coming from the Dean per se,” Timmons wrote, saying the idea had been floated many times in the past.

Goldberg conveyed that he did not yet know how to navigate AI in the legal context, the graduate said, and that he was worried how students would acquire the skills of writing without becoming dependent on it. He stressed that the group included faculty both more skeptical and more bullish about the technology.

Roughly a dozen two-year accelerated JD programs currently exist in the U.S. The first began at Southwestern Law School in California in 1975 and has since expanded to include Suffolk University Law School and Drexel University School of Law.

The idea got a boost in the early 2010s, when Northwestern University added an accelerated program and former U.S. President Barack Obama, a 1991 HLS graduate, endorsed the idea at a town hall, citing rising law school tuition costs and suggesting that the third year be used for work experience.

But the subject has largely disappeared from public discourse and Northwestern suspended their program in 2015, saying the option was hard to administer and received limited demand.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment on whether Goldberg is considering the idea.

The AI committee is chaired by two professors who hold joint administrative roles: Vice Dean for Experiential and Clinical Education Christopher T. Bavitz and Deputy Dean Maureen “Molly” E. Brady ’08. Its other members are Goldberg, Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs Catherine Claypoole, and Dean for Administration L. Tracee Whitley ’88.

Neal wrote in a statement that Goldberg, faculty, and staff are “systematically evaluating the challenges and opportunities that evolving A.I. technology presents for the study, teaching, and practice of law.”

Neal added that innovation is “both expected and welcome,” but would not come at the cost of the Law School’s “world-class instruction.”

The steering committee has been elevated as University administrators publicly tout the transformative power of AI and its role in the classroom.

University President Alan M. Garber ’76 said at the start of the academic year that AI would rapidly accelerate research advances and argued in July that the technology was necessary to be at the forefront of scientific fields.

Harvard College Dean David J. Deming then called for widespread AI adoption in an email sent on the first day of classes, arguing for the “acceptance, or even encouragement” of AI in writing-based courses. The suggestion quickly drew the ire of humanities and social sciences faculty.

While no Harvard school has established a blanket policy on AI use, Deming wrote he would spend the academic year developing potential guidelines for the use of AI in Harvard College classrooms.

Harvard’s posture distinguishes it from several universities who have taken more decisive steps to regulate the technology.

Over the summer, the University of California, Berkeley Law School adopted an outright ban on AI in academic work and exams submitted for credit, though faculty members may opt out.

The University of Chicago Law School separately moved to restrict all phones, tablets, and laptops from first-year core classrooms, limiting students from using technology shortcuts that “stunt intellectual growth.” The school also issued its first strategy statement on the incorporation of AI into its legal curriculum and established an AI Advisory Council with 15 alumni from leading law firms and AI technology companies.

Goldberg and Whitley announced in a Tuesday email to staff that he would be surveying HLS affiliates on current AI use and “where departments anticipate using it in the future.” The email also explicitly prohibited staff from using non-Harvard-authorized AI tools for University work, which is in line with University-wide guidance.

A separate Tuesday email from Goldberg and the steering committee chairs to faculty members outlined distinct guidelines for AI usage within University policy. The message said they could request access to OpenAI ChatGPT Edu, Anthropic Claude, and Google Gemini but did not provide guidance on “AI features embedded in other Harvard systems or specialized tools that may be used for particular teaching, research, or administrative purposes.”

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.