Legal education is navigating complex pressures, from rapid technological change and evolving professional expectations to questions of academic integrity, assessment design, and student preparedness for an AI-enabled workforce. Artificial intelligence and legal technology are not only reshaping the legal profession; they are transforming legal education itself. Law schools are rethinking how they teach, assess, and prepare future lawyers in this shifting landscape.
This panel brings together senior leaders in innovation in legal education from City St George’s, University of London, the University of Sussex, and Manchester Metropolitan University. They will discuss the specific challenges their law schools are facing, including the integration of AI into curricula, maintaining validity, transparency, and authenticity in assessment, and supporting staff and students through change, and how their institutions are responding strategically and pedagogically.
The conversation will explore what it means to take a constructive approach to AI in teaching and assessment, moving beyond reactive or restrictive responses toward thoughtful, values-driven integration. In doing so, it will directly engage with questions of validity, transparency and authenticity in legal education assessment, considering how these foundational principles can be upheld and strengthened in an AI-enabled environment. Panellists will share focus areas, emerging good practice, and practical insights, while also reflecting on the opportunities AI and legal tech present for enhancing learning, developing future-focused skills, and strengthening the resilience of legal education.
Join us for a timely and forward-looking discussion on innovation, challenge, and opportunity in contemporary legal education.
About the Centre
The Centre for Legal Education and the Legal Profession (CLELP) is one of the UK’s leading hubs for research and innovation in legal education and the legal profession. We study how the profession and legal services market are changing, and how legal education in law schools is evolving through rigorous empirical, doctrinal and socio-legal research.
Our members research, teach and collaborate across themes that shape modern legal education and practice, including LegalTech and Generative AI, Clinical Legal Education, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in the Legal Sector, Legal Ethics and Professional Regulation, Access to the Profession and Widening Participation, Student Employability and Careers, Curriculum and Assessment Design, and Communities of Practice in Legal Education.
CLELP sits within Westminster Law School, one of the largest and most diverse law schools in the UK. Our members teach across a wide range of subjects and bring current research into the curriculum. We play a central role in the student experience equipping our students with the knowledge, confidence and professional skills to thrive in their future careers. Through our Legal Careers, Employability and Professional Development Hub, led by CLELP’s Student Fellows, students can take part in activities that connect legal education with practice, explore routes into the profession, and build the skills and attributes most valued by employers.
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About the speaker
Professor Susan Blake
Professor Susan Blake has been an Associate Dean at The City Law School since 2002. She currently leads on strategic development in relation to educational technology, with a particular focus on blended learning and embedding legal technology within the law curriculum. Her work centres on ensuring that legal education remains professionally relevant, pedagogically robust, and responsive to technological change. She has a longstanding commitment to high-quality legal professional training. From 1990 to 1998, she served as Course Director for the Bar Vocational Course, and subsequently as Director of Studies, with responsibility for curriculum design, academic standards, and the development of learning across all professional law programmes.
Danon Pritchard
Danon Pritchard is the Director of Digital Literacies and a Senior Lecturer at The City Law School. She led the design and launch of City St George’s first SQE training programme and has extensive experience teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate law programmes, as well as delivering training to legal practitioners. Her main teaching areas include Legal Practice, AI and Legal Technology, Legal Skills, and Digital Literacies. Her research interests focus on AI and learning design, technology-enhanced learning, and digital literacies within the context of the legal profession, legal education, and professional training. Danon is a Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT) and a Senior Fellow of Advance HE.
Dr Verona Ni Drisceoil
Dr Verona Ni Drisceoil is a Reader in Legal Education and a member of the Education Team, currently leading on Assessment, at Sussex Law School. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), Co-Convenor of the International Connecting Legal Education Network, and a Judge of the OUP Law Teacher of the Year Award. Her research focuses on authenticity, assessment design, and structural reform in legal education in response to generative AI. She is co-author of the forthcoming book How to Embed Authenticity in Legal Assessment: Responding to Generative AI, and has published widely on assessment, innovation, and the future of legal education in an AI-enabled context.
Dr Kryss Macleod
Dr Kryss Macleod is the Head of Legal Pedagogy and Innovation in the School of Law, leading the strategic development of curriculum, assessment, and digital transformation across undergraduate and professional programmes. Her work focuses on equitable outcomes in education, critical pedagogy, and the ethical design of sociotechnical futures in legal education, ensuring students are prepared not only for the profession as it is, but for the profession as it is becoming. In her role, she provides evidence-informed, equitable, and future-oriented approaches to legal learning. From 2019 onwards, she led the School’s strategy for technology and digitalisation, designing and leading the implementation of digital skills, lawtech, and law and technology provision across the School.
