TILE Symposium
Maggie Chon
Professor of Law and Faculty Director, TILE Institute
Email mchon@seattleu.edu
Mark Verstraete
Assistant Professor of Law and Associate Director, TILE Institute
Email mverstraete@seattleu.edu
This panel examines how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) stand to remake contracts and, in addition, the corresponding stakes for access to justice. In doing so, this panel offers an exploration and debate of recent literature that seeks to understand AI’s role in the future of both contract doctrine and contracting itself.
As it stands, there is an emerging scholarly debate in this area. For some, AI offers a glimmer of hope. For example, Yonathan Arbel & Shmuel Becher argue that machine learning models may be able to provide simple explanations of dense contract language, thus empowering individuals to better review and understand these contracts. Likewise, Joshua Fairfield explains how consumers can use automated purchasing agents, preprogrammed with instructions that will form contracts on their terms, providing consumers the ability to negotiate otherwise non-negotiable exchanges. Similarly, Amy Schmitz (one of the panelists) explores how AI tools may facilitate mass arbitration, which seeks to provide a pathway for many consumers to bring claims without access to class action claims.
As a background matter, though, contract law largely embodies a pro-business/anti-consumer slant. As Nancy Kim (one of the panelists) details, businesses, courts, and technology have created a coercive contracting environment where businesses are able to force one-sided contract terms on consumers. Moreover, Kim explains that this shift is a product of contracting form as well: so-called ‘wrap contracts facilitate more seamless contract formation, thus further entrenching these anti-consumer dynamics. Others have recognized that shifts in contractual form raise a host of pressing normative issues. Margaret Radin has demonstrated how boilerplate contracts effectively allow private actors to override the rights that individuals have been granted by democratic institutions, thus allowing private ordering systems to run roughshod over the public order. As companies deploy AI tools, it is possible that these advances will simply entrench businesses’ existing coercive power.
Ultimately, however, this panel is an attempt at legal prognostication. This panel’s primary goal is to synthesize the wisdom of existing scholarly discussions and attempt to show where interventions are possible. In turn, this discussion can serve as a foundation for helping to ensure that AI empowers consumers, rather than concretizing contract law’s current pathologies.
Yonathan A. Arbel & Becher, Shmuel I., Contracts in the Age of Smart Readers, 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 83 (2022), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3740356.
Joshua A. T. Fairfield, Smart Contracts, Bitcoin Bots, and Consumer Protection, 71 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 36 (2014), http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol71/iss1/4.
Nancy S. Kim, Wrap Contracts: Foundations and Ramifications. Oxford University Press. 1-5 (2013), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2322255.
Amy J. Schmitz, Promises and Pitfalls of AI in Mass Arbitration, 27 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol. 291 (2025), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6103686.
Two years after ChatGPT was released, American law schools are finally figuring out what to do about AI, and the different approaches are now visible. Berkeley has adopted a near-total default prohibition. Chicago has banned laptops entirely from its 1L classrooms. Columbia, like most law schools, leaves the question to individual faculty.
This panel takes up the questions that underlie the differing approaches to AI in law teaching. What is the most appropriate policy stance to produce practice-ready lawyers? Should the rules relating to AI differ across first-year doctrinal courses, legal writing, and clinics? An emerging compromise restricts AI in the 1L year while requiring it in clinical settings, but it is not obvious that this dual track is the right one. Nor is it clear that prohibition can be enforced at all, given that faculty concede they cannot reliably detect AI use.
Students, meanwhile, point to a double standard. Schools treat AI as an integrity threat when students use it, yet faculty rely on it to prepare classes and draft feedback, and recent studies suggest they could credibly use it to grade exams. What do AI tutors and next-generation research tools mean for the faculty role? The panelists, several of whom authored the studies driving these debates, will provide their insights into these questions.
Hamsa Bastani, et al., Generative AI Without Guardrails Can Harm Learning: Evidence from High School Mathematics, 122 PNAS. 1 (2025), https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2422633122.
Kevin L. Cope et al., Grading Machines: Can AI Exam-Grading Replace Law Professors?, 3 J.L. & Empirical Analysis 2, 2-22 (2026), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2755323X261434265.
Zhitian Hou et al., Large Language Models Meet Legal Artificial Intelligence: A Survey (Sept. 12, 2025), https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09969.
Dyane L. O’Leary, “Smart” Lawyering: Integrating Technology Competence into the Legal Practice Curriculum, 19 U.N.H. L. Rev. 197 (2021), https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_lr/vol19/iss2/2.
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Artificial Intelligence Policy (2026), https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/AI-Final-Policy-26.pdf, (last visited Aug. 06, 2026).
Drawing on perspectives from the bench, private practice, legal academia, and the Washington State Bar Association’s work on technology, professional regulation, and continuing legal education, this panel will examine how emerging AI tools are reshaping the delivery of legal services, the exercise of professional judgment, and the expectations courts place on lawyers and litigants. The discussion will explore what technological competence now requires; how courts, bar associations, and practitioners should respond as AI tools evolve; whether AI’s benefits will meaningfully reach the litigants and communities who need them most; and what safeguards and professional norms are necessary to ensure that AI strengthens, rather than undermines, integrity and equity in the legal system.
LeDoux v. Outliers, No. 3:24-cv-5808-TMC, 2026 WL 2137370 (W.D. Wash. July 24, 2026), https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/3:2024cv05808/339711/265.
LNU v. Blanche, 177 F.4th 1014 (9th Cir. 2026), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/24-4790/24-4790-2026-06-03.html.
Board of Governors July 2026 Meeting Materials, Washington State Bar Association (2026), https://www.wsba.org/docs/default-source/about-wsba/governance/bog-meeting-materials-2025-2026/july-24-25/board-of-governors-meeting-materials-july-24-25-2026.pdf?sfvrsn=4763e6f1_26 (“WSBA Committee on Professional Ethics — Suggested Comments to Selected Rules of Professional Conduct on Artificial Intelligence from Joint Project with the Washington State Supreme Court” (June 17, 2026) at 99-114).
Washington State Bar Association Advisory Op. 2025-05 (2025), https://www.wsba.org/docs/default-source/legal-community/committees/committee-on-professional-ethics/ao-202505.pdf.
Washington State Bar Association Legal Technology Taskforce, Embracing Change: Strategic roadmap for Washington's legal profession in a time of technology disruption (2025), https://www.wsba.org/docs/default-source/legal-community/committees/legal-technology-task-force/wsba-legal-technology-task-force-final-report-and-recommendations_-wsba-member-survey-results-report.pdf?sfvrsn=bc101af1_3.
This Panel features three Seattle University School of Law students whose work examines the relationship between rapid technological innovation, governance, ethical issues, and law reform. Drawing on academic, research, and professional experiences, each panelist will present a distinct project.
SJD candidate Ibrahim Badawi’s presentation will discuss his work focused on environmental law governance and the need for comprehensive federal law to address electronic waste in the United States.
JD candidate Dale Berg’s presentation, entitled “Clearing the Record: A Free, Privacy-First Web Tool for Navigating Criminal Record Relief”, will discuss a proposed web application to guide individuals in Washington State through the process of seeking petition-based criminal record relief.
SJD candidate Radhika Dhanotia’s presentation, entitled “Whose Steps Are They, Anyway? Fitness Trackers, Predictive Health Data, and a Risk-Tiered Governance Framework”, will discuss governance of health data collected by wearable fitness trackers and propose a framework to achieve privacy governance in the context of algorithmic decision-making. This project was supported by the Seattle University Technology Ethics Initiative Student-Scholar Program.
Together, the presentations will highlight gaps in existing legal systems, then raise practical and ethical questions regarding the use and governance of emerging technologies. The panelists will propose recommendations to promote sustainability, data privacy, and access to justice.