(Video) Revolutionizing Legal Education: How AI and Innovation are Shaping the Lawyers of Tomorrow At Suffolk Law School

The legal industry is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and legal technology. In a recent episode of Law Leaders Masterminds, host Dustin Ruge sat down with Andrew Perlman, Dean of Suffolk University Law School—recognized as a pioneer in legal innovation and technology education. Dean Perlman shared insights into how Suffolk is preparing its students to excel in a tech-driven legal landscape. The school’s accolades, including being ranked #1 in legal technology by the National Jurist, underscore its leadership in integrating AI and innovation into legal education.

Suffolk was the first law school in the U.S. to create a concentration in Legal Innovation and Technology, equipping students with skills like legal project management, process improvement, and automated document assembly. These efforts are already paying off, as graduates, such as the creator of HelloPrenup, are disrupting traditional legal services and succeeding in innovative ventures. Beyond individual success stories, Suffolk’s initiatives like the Legal Innovation and Technology Lab are improving access to justice by automating legal processes for underserved communities. Dean Perlman emphasized that the future of law isn’t lawyers versus AI, but lawyers who harness AI versus those who don’t—a perspective already reshaping legal hiring trends.

Looking ahead, Perlman predicts AI will fundamentally transform every aspect of legal practice within the next decade. Suffolk is staying ahead of the curve by incorporating AI tools into its curriculum and launching programs like an online LL.M. in Legal Innovation and Technology, catering to both new and seasoned lawyers. With technology poised to redefine the profession, Suffolk University Law School exemplifies how institutions can adapt to ensure their graduates remain at the forefront of the legal industry’s evolution.

Transcript:

Dustin Ruge: Welcome to legal masterminds at law leaders. I’m your host, Dustin Ruge. And today we’re joined by Andrew Perlman, who currently serves as the Dean of the Suffolk University Law School, based in Boston.

Dustin Ruge: Andrew received his BA. From Yale, Jd. From Harvard and Llm. From Columbia University, and of his many honors and achievements. Andrew was recently named as one of the top 20 influential people in legal education. Andrew, thank you for joining us today.

Andrew Perlman: My pleasure. Dustin, thanks so much for having me.

Dustin Ruge: My pleasure. Absolutely so, Andrew, before we get started. Here, let’s talk a little bit about the law school for those who might not be familiar with it. I want to point

Dustin Ruge: of all the accomplishments and achievements of law school. There’s 4 that stand out in my mind, and they include you’re rated as an A plus by technology law for pre-law magazine, rated Number 3 in legal writing by Us. News world report, a top 12 for law school and innovation by Bloomberg law, as well as ranked number one in legal technology by the national jurors. That’s quite an accomplishment for your for your law school.

Andrew Perlman: It really is, and thanks I need to bring you as my publicist on the road for Suffolk. You nailed it exactly. Some of the accolades that I like to point out myself. And you know those recognitions are very much a product of who we have been for a very long time we’ve long emphasized a practice oriented legal education. You mentioned the number 3 ranking in legal writing, which is obviously critical.

Andrew Perlman: Number 12 in in clinical training, and what we view as the 21st century equivalent of those skills is legal tech.

Andrew Perlman: And I think there’s a lot of confusion out there about what is meant by legal tech, and the best way that I’ve heard it described is a colleague of mine, Mark Lauratson, who once taught, who has taught at Suffolk law for many years as an adjunct. And he said, there’s a distinction between the law of technology and the technology of law.

Andrew Perlman: and a lot of technology includes traditional, more recent traditional subjects like intellectual property, or now, cybersecurity, law, or ways in which the law intersects with tech. But what we have really invested in in addition to those areas is the technology of law practice. That is, how do you embrace technology and innovation to deliver legal services better, faster and cheaper. That is what those recognitions are about, and we have.

Andrew Perlman: I am very grateful to see, been seen as a national if not international, leader in that field.

Dustin Ruge: Excellent. And you’re obviously the Dean of this Suffolk University Law School. How did you decide to become the Dean? What! What motivated you to want to do this.

Andrew Perlman: Well, those decisions are always complex. I had been a member of the faculty for 14 years. I joined Suffolk Law in the fall of 2,001, and the deanship opened up in the 2014 to 2015 academic year. And

Andrew Perlman: I really realized that I enjoy administrative work. It’s not a common statement to make among academics, but I like the service part of it. I like thinking strategically about legal education. And how do you take a school forward, and I really love the mission here at Suffolk specifically, and I wasn’t interested in being the Dean at any law school. I wanted to be the Dean here, and I saw ways in which I thought I could advance

Andrew Perlman: the institution. So when the deanship opened up, I applied for it, and was very fortunate to get the role.

Dustin Ruge: Nice, excellent. Well, obviously, as we talked about with your accolades, your school has developed a unique standing in the world of legal technology. What exactly are you doing that is so unique compared to other law schools in the nation today?

Andrew Perlman: About 10 years ago we were the 1st law school in the country to create a legal innovation and technology concentration. It’s kind of like a law school major, where we were teaching skills and knowledge that really weren’t taught at many. If any law schools at the time, things like legal project management process, improvement, automated document, assembly design thinking for lawyers just a new way of thinking

Andrew Perlman: about the delivery of legal services. And so we were at the forefront of that kind of training, and some of the early students who got that training are now going on to do some pretty interesting and cutting edge work. One of my favorite stories is of Julia Rogers, who graduated not long after we created the concentration. She went into family law and realized, based on the education that she received at Suffolk.

Andrew Perlman: that there was a better, faster, and cheaper way to deliver prenuptial agreements. So she created a company called Hello prenup, went on. Shark Tank got an investment for 2 different sharks, and was so successful they did a follow up episode on her at Suffolk last year, and her company is now worth over 20 million dollars. As a result of what she learned.

Andrew Perlman: And there’s multiple examples like that. Now you fast forward from there. And since then we have invested in the creation of a legal innovation and technology lab, our Lit lab, and we are working with legal aid organizations and courts to automate

Andrew Perlman: the creation of commonly used legal documents. And we have enabled the filing of those documents directly into a court’s case management system.

Andrew Perlman: and it’s enabled tens of thousands of people to gain access to legal services that they might not otherwise be able to afford. And our students are working in that lab, learning the skills that are necessary to reimagine the delivery of legal services for the future. So those are just a couple of examples.

Dustin Ruge: Yeah, that’s fantastic. In fact, we had. I remember there was a Supreme Court meeting here in Arizona just a few weeks back, where the judge was talking about the access to law issue. It’s very real in this, in this country, and there’s deserts of of, you know, the legal deserts we refer to where people just literally have little or no access to law.

Dustin Ruge: The other thing we’ve noticed, too, in our work is we’ve seen ever since Covid. A lot of Bill Rates have gone up, which is drove that divide between access of law much wider for many people that just can’t afford legal services. So that’s fantastic that you guys are working on that. Yeah.

Andrew Perlman: What you’ve described in Arizona. You both have the literal deserts and the legal deserts, and it’s a universal problem. The statistics are staggering. The legal Services corporation reports that more than 90% of people of modest means are unable to get effective assistance and commonly commonly encountered civil legal services, areas like

Andrew Perlman: child custody or eviction foreclosure debt collection. That’s a huge problem and legal tech, I think, can be part of the solution. It can enable us to help people who otherwise are not getting assistance. But I think

Andrew Perlman: any lawyer in any context is going to be expected to embrace these tools, because clients of all kinds, from the wealthiest and most well resourced to those who have trouble affording them, are going to demand that their lawyers use the most cutting edge tools available. So I think it’s going to be critical for the legal profession as a whole.

Dustin Ruge: The document work that you were just referring to? It’s very interesting. Is that, does that mean that people now have the ability to do more pro se type work? Or what is that doing exactly for them in the legal space.

Andrew Perlman: So there are a number of use cases. One is for pro se litigants, and some of the tools that we’ve created are designed to help self-represented litigants, and in ways that they would otherwise not get any assistance at all. So oftentimes it’s not. Either you go to a lawyer, or you use one of these forms that we’ve created, it’s either you get to use one of these forms or you get no help at all. So that’s 1 use case.

Andrew Perlman: but the other use case is to put these tools in the hands of lawyers who can automate a lot of the commonly used legal forms that they create all of the time, and enable them to deliver those services in a more cost, effective way to their clients. And I think that ultimately helps the lawyers, and it helps the clients they serve. So I think there is a use case for automation here that benefits the public and pro se litigants as well as lawyers.

Dustin Ruge: Excellent, excellent. So one of the things, too, Andrew I wanted to talk about. I know when we met months ago and started talking about your law school, and I was really fascinated by what you guys were doing was, you know, historically, many of the law schools traditionally have compared themselves based upon the bar passage rates of their graduates right? And that was kind of the marker in which they kind of define themselves compared to others. But in June I kind of looked at the labor market.

Dustin Ruge: It was interesting. One of the greatest indicators of trends in many industries is the labor market, and I posted an article out in June that talked about how attorneys now with AI skills are generating almost 49% wage premiums over other attorneys that aren’t doing that which I thought was fascinating. In fact, that was the largest of almost any other industry that was out there.

Dustin Ruge: How does this change? What law schools need to be teaching attorneys. Is it just about bar passage rate anymore? Or are you guys really trend setting into an area that the labor market’s currently showing.

Andrew Perlman: It’s a great question, and I would say the latter, we’re really moving very forcefully in the direction of where the labor market expects us to go, and what employers want of our graduates, and what clients ultimately need. And it’s 1 of the reasons that yes, we have great 1st time. Bar Pass rates over 80% here in Massachusetts. But what I’m particularly proud of going to the labor point

Andrew Perlman: is that we have been breaking school records on our employment outcomes which are measured by the percentage of each graduating class that has a full-time long-term job where a Jd. Is required or a significant advantage within 10 months of graduation.

Andrew Perlman: And we’ve been having 35 year highs. And it’s only because we have data going back only 35 years. So we’ve been really doing well and improving much more quickly than the rest of the country. We’ve seen the the fastest improvement of any law school in the country over the last 9 years on that metric. And one of the reasons why coming to your question

Andrew Perlman: is that we have really focused on giving our students the skills that employers are expecting and demanding, so that our graduates can hit the ground running from day, one coming back to your original question, and the accolades that Suffolk has received. We prided ourselves on graduating students who understand the practice of law. It’s not enough to just fill your head

Andrew Perlman: of doctrine and knowledge. You need to be able to

Andrew Perlman: do something. You need to have skills. And that’s what the employer market is responding to. And now we are also equipping our students with an understanding of AI. So on the generative AI question, we’ve already started to incorporate it into our 1st year legal research and writing class that number 3 program that you mentioned.

Andrew Perlman: Students are being taught the traditional methods of legal research and legal writing. But then they’re being exposed to. How would you use a generative AI tool, whether it’s Chatgpt or Claude, or something like that to create that memo

Andrew Perlman: students can analyze it. They can see what it did well and most importantly, what it didn’t do well, and they can learn the iterative process that is involved in using generative AI tools effectively and ethically. And of course, our legal innovation and technology lab that I described is offering students opportunities to use generative AI there as well. So

Andrew Perlman: it’s something that we take seriously. I personally believe that generative AI is the most transformative technology ever invented for the legal profession, and it is our responsibility as a law school to ensure that our graduates understand how to use it. Well, because I don’t believe. And this is a common refrain, and I think it’s right on the mark. It’s the future is not going to be lawyers versus generative. AI.

Andrew Perlman: It’s going to be to your point about that statistic you quote quoted lawyers who know how to use AI effectively versus lawyers who don’t, and I want graduates of Suffolk law to be in that former category.

Dustin Ruge: Yep, that’s absolutely true. It’s amazing how many attorneys I work with every day that just struggle with the whole concept of AI,

Dustin Ruge: and what it truly means, and to your point about using large language models and being able to do generative content generation. There’s also the ethical constraint around that as well, and a lot of attorneys get. Really. I got to be careful saying this, but I’ve seen a number of attorneys over the years that become very lazy with this, and and put themselves into an ethical hot water potentially without the

Dustin Ruge: they use these tools.

Andrew Perlman: No question. Yeah. Yeah. I recently wrote about this in an article called the Legal Ethics of Generative AI, and everyone loves to cite the now infamous lawyer in New York, who inserted hallucinated citations in a brief and quite appropriately, was sanctioned for doing so. And if you’re lazy and don’t use the tools properly. You’re going to be sanctioned. And it’s ethically problematic. But here’s the big picture point, I think.

Andrew Perlman: is that we are going to move from this moment, where people are worried about the ethical implications of using these tools to a future where it will be considered unethical if you don’t use these tools.

Andrew Perlman: And I think the analogy here is to email from 25 years ago, when I had started practice, there were bar opinions that said, Don’t use email. They’re too dangerous. Confidentiality could be compromised. Be careful.

Andrew Perlman: And so essentially warning lawyers not to use email. Now, you fast forward today, you can’t be licensed to practice in many jurisdictions unless you have an email address. So we went from warning lawyers don’t use it. It may be unethical to it’s ethically required. And I think generative AI is going to go through a very similar evolution. We’re worried about some of the ethical implications today. But lawyers better figure it out, because before too long it’s going to be state of the art, and you’re going to be expecting

Andrew Perlman: to use it.

Dustin Ruge: Yeah. In fact, I think we’re already seeing that now we’re starting to see certain judges that are technologically advanced, literally talking about potential malpractice for people who don’t use these types of tools in discovery and other areas that can really support their cases. So it’s really a fascinating time. And to your point. This is the fastest innovation of any technology of our lifetime.

Dustin Ruge: It went from one to 100 million and faster than any other technology out there, and I think a lot of attorneys. They’re still struggling conceptually with this. But to your point, the great thing about law schools like yours and others is, it’s giving a foundation for them to understand how to do these things properly, which is really great. Let’s talk about the business of law a little bit more in applying AI.

Dustin Ruge: When you look at the impacts of AI and what you’re seeing now in your law school and working with attorneys, what practice areas. Do you see potentially being impacted? The most of all the areas of law for those people that use or don’t use AI.

Andrew Perlman: I think it’s going to touch every area of law, but in different ways. It just may be, as the quote often is, the future is here. It’s just going to be unevenly distributed. So I think it may hit some practice areas sooner than others, and in a deeper way than others, but it’s hard to imagine an area of law that is not

Andrew Perlman: either already affected by AI or will be affected by AI.

Andrew Perlman: I. You know I think it may be useful to ask the question like, what kinds of skills won’t be touched by AI, because I think that instead of thinking about practice areas. It may be more useful to think about what skills are going to be AI resistant.

Andrew Perlman: And I and I think some of them would include, for example problem, solving strategic thinking.

Andrew Perlman: negotiation. And I say those I use those advisedly because I think even in those areas generative AI is going to be helpful

Andrew Perlman: and offer feedback and assistance. But I do think that there are some areas where lawyer skills are going to be as valuable as ever. So and those are skills that cut across lots of different areas. And that’s why I don’t think that the future is going to be generative. AI versus nothing versus lawyers. It’s the lawyers who are able to pair that skill set those skill sets with AI to do their jobs even better.

Dustin Ruge: Yeah. And when you look at your law school and your students that are coming out, you had that great story about the shark tank. You know story that came out with a recent graduate. What advantages do you see of your newer graduates from your program having on the legal community? And and what should other attorneys know about them when it comes to hiring them, or considering them when they come out of your law school?

Andrew Perlman: Well, I think any employer right now should be, and I say this all the time. When I give presentations, every employer should be looking for graduates who not only understand the traditional skills that I think are still going to be important, but are able to think about the delivery of legal services in new ways. Here’s another way to think about it.

Andrew Perlman: Law schools have long taught issue, spotting

Andrew Perlman: one of the reasons you learn contracts and torts and property.

Andrew Perlman: It is not because you’re going to remember all of those subjects

Andrew Perlman: for the force, you know, for the distant future.

Andrew Perlman: It’s pattern recognition. What you want to be able to do is when you see, when you have a client and that client has a problem, you can recognize some of the

Andrew Perlman: the facts that will trigger. This is a particular kind of issue. I need to research that issue, but you can recognize it as a particular kind of problem. What I think employers should be looking for when they hire are graduates who can engage in a different kind of issue spotting, and that is when they go into practice, they can look at the way the firm company is addressing its legal issues and say.

Andrew Perlman: I learned about something in law school. Either it’s automated Document Assembly, a use of generative AI.

Andrew Perlman: And I think there’s a better way to do this

Andrew Perlman: kind of like that graduate I was telling you about Julia Rogers, who built the automated prenup tool. She was in family law.

Andrew Perlman: and she was creating prenups, the old, old fashioned way. And then she’s like, you know what I learned about these automated document assembly tools in law school? I bet there’s a better way to do this. And she built it. That’s exactly the graduate of the future. That’s what we want to try to build.

Dustin Ruge: Fantastic, and that’s a great segue into kind of some new initiatives that you guys are working on. I’d love to hear more about shifting gears a little bit around. You know what are some of the exciting things that your law students are working on now, and I know you mentioned one of them, which was the the document standardization. But are there any other types of initiatives that you guys are working on that you’re excited about? Or you’re planning on things of that that we should be aware of.

Andrew Perlman: Well, we’re launching a new Llm. So graduate program in legal innovation technology, because I regularly get the question even among lawyers. Boy, I wish somebody taught me this in law school. So after hearing that enough times, we’re like, Okay, well, we’ll build something for you. And now we have an Llm. That we expect it’ll be some us-based lawyers who might pursue it, but especially from abroad, is very common

Andrew Perlman: for international lawyers to pursue an Llm. And because we are one of the world’s leading law schools in this area.

Andrew Perlman: We’re hopeful. They’ll come to us for that kind of training. So we’re excited about that, and that is taking our knowledge and expertise and really sharing it with the world beyond. Just our Jd students.

Dustin Ruge: And who who’s most likely to benefit from that program? Because it is it people that have been out and practicing for a while? Or or is it a natural progression from your Jd. Into this? Or what do you foresee, as is the ideal person for that program?

Andrew Perlman: I think a couple of potentials. It could be someone who is a current. Jd student wants to add an Llm. We actually have students who do that already, and in tax they’ll get the Jd. And the Llm. In tax while they’re here. And I could imagine that’s true, too. But it also could be people who have been out for a few years, and they realize they’re going to need to upskill if they’re going to remain competitive and cutting edge for their their careers, and I think that there will be people who are established lawyers who want to. Just

Andrew Perlman: I develop a new skill set.

Dustin Ruge: Right now. That’s a full time. Is that a 1 year program part time.

Andrew Perlman: Be one year, full time, 2 years, part time, and it can be done online.

Dustin Ruge: It can be done online as well. So that’s fantastic.

Andrew Perlman: So if you’re interested, Dustin, let me know.

Dustin Ruge: Very good. I appreciate that. And the final thing is just kind of looking forward. And you’re obviously very well respected in this space. Your school is very well respected, looking forward like 5 to 10 years from today. Where where do you see all of these technology innovations around the future of law fundamentally changing law and society. I’m just.

Dustin Ruge: This is a question I often ask people that are kind of visionaries in the space which is, where are we 5 to 10 years from now? I mean, AI is clearly having a huge impact. But where do you foresee this going.

Andrew Perlman: I’m going to quote other people here. 1st of all, I’m going to quote somebody who’s known for lots of very funny quotes.

Andrew Perlman: And in this particular case it’s Yogi Berra

Andrew Perlman: of the Yankees who once said, predictions are difficult, especially about the future.

Andrew Perlman: and I think that’s exactly right. So when you ask me to predict what’s going to happen 10 years out? Who knows? I feel confident in saying that generative AI is going to be pretty transformative, and it’s going to affect almost every industry. It’s certainly law in pretty fundamental ways. So I feel pretty confident about saying that the other point I would make

Andrew Perlman: is when lawyers look around, and they haven’t seen much change in the almost 2 years now since Chatgpt was released. They may be unduly

Andrew Perlman: skeptical about what the future holds. And so the other quote I would offer is one that’s often attributed to Bill Gates, who has said that we often overestimate the amount of change that takes place in 2 years

Andrew Perlman: and underestimate the amount of change in 10.

Andrew Perlman: And I think that’s a perfect

Andrew Perlman: way to describe generative AI. It’s only been a couple of years, and the changes have been relatively modest so far.

Andrew Perlman: But I think when we look out 10 years in that horizon, there’s going to be a fundamentally new way in which we deliver lots of different services, including legal services. And so it’s hard to know what form that is going to take, but I feel very confident that the next 10 years are going to look very different from the prior 10 years, so we’ll see if I’m right.

Dustin Ruge: Yeah, well, I think you are. And it’s amazing because every other industry is moving to skills based models. You know, where they’re moving away from the resumes, the backgrounds and more of the the up to date skills. And I think legal is is clearly a there’s a huge Greenfield for the for the opportunity to do that. And I think your programs are very well situated for that. And you’re providing a lot of great value to legal community, and we appreciate that for doing that. So, Andrew, is there anything else that we should? We should know that we haven’t discussed today that you, you think would be helpful for anybody else to

Dustin Ruge: ponder, ponder.

Andrew Perlman: That. That’s it. We’ve covered it. I’m just excited to share what we’re doing at Suffolk and appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. Dustin.

Dustin Ruge: My pleasure. And, Andrew, if if somebody’s interested in your Llm programs, or Jd programs, or things of that nature, what’s the best way to either find out more information or to reach out to the to the Law school.

Andrew Perlman: Well, the easy answer would be, ask Chatgpt. But I think that’s probably not the best approach. If you just Google Suffolk law, Llm. In legal innovation technology, you’ll find all of the relevant resources and and how to apply. And if you want to learn about our legal innovation technology program, just do Suffolk law lit, and you’ll find pretty much as much information as you’d like to find.

Dustin Ruge: Right. And that program you start enrolling. I believe in January of next year. Is that correct? In 2,000.

Andrew Perlman: For the the new Llm.

Andrew Perlman: Is, we’re for the fall of this coming year, fall of 2025.

Dustin Ruge: Okay, okay, very good, excellent, Andrew, thank you for your time. I appreciate this. This is very helpful, and I’m sure everybody’s going to enjoy all this material, and we will have links to all of the information Andrew’s talked about in the information below, and thank you all for listening and watching. If you like this content or like this video, please subscribe on Youtube and thanks for watching.

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