Duquesne Law Expands Law Firm Collaboration to Shape AI Education

Duquesne University’s Kline School of Law is extending a law-firm collaboration into a second academic year to align AI education with legal practice. Faculty and staff visited six firms during the program’s first year, including Jones Day, Reed Smith and Babst Calland. The school plans six additional firm visits during the current academic year.

The initiative places legal education inside the market’s accelerating debate over how lawyers should use artificial intelligence. Law firms are developing practical approaches to legal research, contract management and other legal technology applications, while law schools face pressure to prepare students for work in practices where AI tools may influence research, drafting and legal operations. Duquesne’s approach treats firms as sources of operational insight rather than limiting AI instruction to classroom theory.

The school launched its AI and Law Collaboration last year and is continuing it through visits to a range of law firms. The source does not identify the full group of participating firms or describe a commercial technology arrangement, licensing agreement or financial commitment. Instead, the program is structured around information gathering: faculty and staff examine how legal professionals use AI in real-world settings and use those observations to inform education. That distinction matters in a market where law schools, firms and technology companies are still defining what practical AI competence should mean for future lawyers.

Industry Implications

Duquesne’s second-year expansion signals that AI education is moving toward sustained engagement with legal employers rather than one-time curriculum experiments. For firms, participation offers a channel to shape how new lawyers understand technology, workflow controls and professional responsibility before those recruits enter practice. For enterprise legal departments and legal operations teams, the model highlights a growing need for lawyers who can assess AI use in context, not simply operate a tool.

The program also illustrates a competitive pressure facing law schools. Institutions that connect teaching to current firm workflows may be better positioned to demonstrate relevance as students and employers evaluate legal education. At the same time, the absence of a disclosed product or vendor relationship underscores that the market’s central challenge is not only tool adoption. It is building reliable judgment around where AI fits, where human review remains necessary and how those decisions should be taught.

DreamLegal Perspective

Legal technology vendors should monitor programs like Duquesne’s for signals about the skills firms will expect from entry-level lawyers, particularly across legal research, contract management and AI-enabled workflows. Legal operations professionals should support education that combines tool familiarity with process discipline, review standards and clear limits on automation. The most consequential partnerships may be those that convert firm experience into repeatable training rather than those that merely showcase a product.