It’s hard to believe it was only a decade ago that most of us got our first taste of artificial intelligence by asking Alexa, our personal virtual assistant, to play a song, remind us of an appointment, or check the weather.
Today, AI, GenAI, ChatGPT, object tracking, facial recognition, predictive modeling, and robots with specific task capabilities have become commonplace in business and everyday life.
At Capital University Law School, discussion of artificial intelligence is crucial, making its way into the curriculum around ethics, legal research and writing, and rules of professional conduct.
Jenny Wondracek, director of the Law School’s Law Library and a professor of Legal Research and Writing, believes it’s imperative to teach law students and practicing attorneys about the ethics of AI.
As a recent ABA Techshow panelist, Wondracek compared artificial intelligence to a first-year summer law school associate: “It knows just enough to be dangerous. It doesn’t realize yet that there isn’t always an answer. And it really wants to make you happy.”
For busy attorneys, using AI products can aid in several areas of legal research and analysis, including analyzing case briefs, relevant statutes, and legal precedents; sifting through massive amounts of information; identifying potential areas of liability; developing strategies to minimize risk; and generating case-specific documents.
When she was hired at Capital in 2020, Wondracek was tasked with modernizing the Law Library. She also started a legal research boot camp and has hosted continuing education sessions on the ethical use of AI by legal professionals and AI prompt-building for Capital Law School alumni and the legal community. An overview of artificial intelligence was added to a required legal research course for first-year Cap Law students. And several new upper-level courses have been added that include AI instruction, including Law Practice Technology and AI & the Law.
“My goal in life is to make sure none of my students end up on the front page of the New York Times for a bad reason.”
Jenny Wondracek
Growing up in a house where technology was commonplace, Wondracek recalled the Commodore 64 that her grandmother purchased without a hard drive, the decommissioned computers her dad would rebuild, and the software her mom would put together. “We learned as we went,” she said. “It triggered our interest, so we dialed up and went into message boards to learn more.”
That interest in computers and the law ultimately led her to her current job. “Artificial intelligence and generative AI are being integrated into everything. The key for anyone, but particularly for lawyers, is learning to use it ethically and responsibly.”
She pointed to recent court rulings around AI in legal cases, including a ruling that rejected copyright protection for AI-generated work without a human author, and cases in which attorneys relied on ChatGPT as a legal research tool only to learn it had cited fake cases (“hallucinations”) that were submitted to court by attorneys who didn’t check their legitimacy.
“My goal in life is to make sure none of my students end up on the front page of the New York Times for a bad reason,” she said. “We talk about using AI properly and ethically, making sure they don’t cite something for something it didn’t say, and selecting the right tool to avoid violating client confidentiality.”
Wondracek earned a master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a juris doctor degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Her expertise in the use of legal technology was recognized in December 2024 when she received the AALS Technology, Law, and Legal Education Section Award for “groundbreaking work at the intersection of law, technology, and innovation.”
In 2021, she was included in the Women of Legal Tech list, an initiative of the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center to encourage diversity and celebrate women in legal technology. She was also recognized that same year for another legal tech honor when she was listed as a member of the Fastcase 50.