SMU Law Review Forum

Why I Use AI to Assist with Legal Scholarship

Michael J. Showalter, Showalter PLLCFollow

Abstract

In early 2026, I wrote a short law review article, with Claude’s junior-associate assistance, in roughly fifteen hours. I was so stunned by Claude’s effectiveness that I promptly started a law firm to replicate my productivity gains for clients. But I viewed my decision to use modern technology as unremarkable—no more surprising than a lawyer skipping the law library for Westlaw when it was invented.

Unexpectedly, my story went viral on social media and polarized the legal academy. Before anyone had read the article—its identity was not initially disclosed—some professors labeled it “plagiarism,” “academic dishonesty,” and “slop.” One simply assumed, with no basis, that I’d “strategically withheld” Claude’s assistance. Once the article was disclosed, one law professor expressed “contempt” for the article because he is “F***ING DOING THE F***ING WORK,” he said without the asterisks, on a project broader than mine. Several professors bizarrely asserted that Claude directed the writing even though the only person with firsthand knowledge of the matter had reported the opposite. SMU Law Review Forum’s student editors faced pushback from faculty about publishing the article but defended its publication.

This Essay defends the legitimacy of AI-assisted legal scholarship, using my own article as an example. Like every other tool, AI can be used for good or evil. It is bad when AI enables students to cheat without detection. It is good when it enables lawyers to slash prices for middle-class Americans. We should capture the good, and it is definitely good for society that the cost of excellent legal work has collapsed. I am sympathetic to those whose income is threatened (that’s all of us, eventually), but our fear of change cannot lead us to discard the productivity gains AI enables. The cost is far too high. AI presents the legal profession with an opportunity to dramatically increase access to top-tier representation for deserving Americans—meritorious plaintiffs and meritorious defendants alike—who would otherwise be forced to acquiesce to unjust outcomes for the sake of their pocketbooks. And because AI-fluent law professors can triple or more their productivity, they can maintain their current output while using two-thirds of their current time for things like engaging in more pro bono work, tripling their scholarly contributions, or mending broken relationships. If a person’s work is good for the world, suddenly being able to do it in a fraction of the time can only be a good thing.