The question facing every law school today isn't whether artificial intelligence will change the legal profession. It already has. The question is whether we're preparing lawyers to lead that change — or simply adapt to it. At Syracuse University College of Law, our answer is clear. We are preparing our students to lead in an AI-enabled world, giving them the tools to understand the technology, the ethical framework to use it responsibly, and the legal fluency to help shape the rules that will govern it.
That commitment shows up in concrete ways. In a first-of-its-kind AI residency. In a new course pairing AI law with ethics, because understanding the technology is only half the challenge. In an Innovation Law Center that credentialed students as patent agents before they ever sat for the bar exam.
Preparing students to lead doesn't stop at AI. Syracuse Law is expanding where legal education reaches and who it serves — from students traveling to Zurich to study international tax law alongside global practitioners, to JDinteractive (JDi) graduates now practicing in Alaska, Hawaii, rural Georgia, and beyond, meeting the need for legal representation in communities that have long gone without it. We are working to both expand what a legal education can look like and who it can serve.
This issue of Syracuse Law Magazine is full of their stories, along with those of alumni building companies, shaping policy, and advising global institutions at the intersection of law and technology in ways that would have been difficult to imagine a decade ago. And yours is part of the same tradition. The legal profession is changing faster than it ever has. What doesn't change, and what never has, is the value of a community that prepares you not just for where the law is, but for where it's going.
Thank you for being part of ours.
Dean Terence Lau L’98
