Building the Future of Law Libraries: Artificial Intelligence, Opportunities, and Advancement

Laskowski, Casandra and Buckingham, Richard and Marks, Taryn and Miguel-Stearns, Teresa M. and Niedringhaus, Kristina L. and Parsons, Patrick and Pike, George H., Building the Future of Law Libraries: Artificial Intelligence, Opportunities, and Advancement (October 13, 2025). Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 25-31, U. of Pittsburgh Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2025-32, Stanford Public Law Working Paper, Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 25-56, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5599552 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5599552

“The Future of Law Libraries initiative convened six regional roundtables on Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Law Libraries with experts from academic, court, firm, and government law libraries, as well as allied professions, using scenario-building methodology to examine how AI is reshaping legal education, work, and systems and what law libraries must do to lead that change. The common message: legal information professionals must take an active, coordinated role in AI policy, training, and infrastructure or risk being sidelined as legal information vendors and non-library actors set the agenda. This white paper distills convergent themes and proposes collaborative directions. It explores three recommendations that sprang from the roundtables: 1) create a centralized AI organization, 2) develop tiered training for legal information professionals, and 3) establish a shared knowledge hub. If we are successful in this next stage, we will have coordinated advocacy and standards, a workforce with more advanced skills, and an open, authoritative, dynamic, centralized repository. We will be convening teams to push these recommendations forward and we provide a link in the Call to Action section for our colleagues to join this effort.”