Practice-Ready From Day One: How SMU Dedman Teaches Legal Writing With :Harvey:

Professor Stobaugh: In my AI and Pre-Litigation course, we used Harvey every class. The students took a real, but inactive, client matter from intake all the way through settlement. Students drafted an engagement letter, built an outline of viable claims, wrote a demand letter, and finally drafted a settlement agreement – using Harvey every step of the way. They even negotiated against a simulated opposing counsel, using a different AI platform. In our first-year Prepare to Practice workshop, practicing lawyers showed students how they actually use Harvey for things like preparing for deposition, asking Harvey to play a judge, and having it find the weaknesses in a brief or motion. You could see the light bulbs going off for students.

Jade: A lot of law firms use AI now, so knowing how to work with it puts you at a real advantage. As a summer associate, it has been invaluable to double-check my work before it reaches a partner. I will run a draft through Harvey and ask where an argument is weaker than I thought, where I should add more, and how to reorder my claims. A lot of people do not know how to do that, or they hand in output they never verified and end up submitting inaccurate results. Knowing how to use Harvey well already sets you apart.

Professor Stobaugh: The best thing I can do as a teacher is show students that Harvey is like any other tool on your tool belt. You still need the discretion and the know-how to use it well. You are still the operator. So, I lean on comparison exercises. Students write something themselves, then have Harvey write it, and we talk through where Harvey did well and where it fell short. Other times, I have them take Harvey's output and revise it heavily, so they see this is never a hands-off process.

Jade: I completely agree. The biggest advantage is knowing how to do the work yourself first, because then you understand its strengths and weaknesses. If Harvey cites a case I do not recognize, I go read it and confirm it myself. If you cannot do that, opposing counsel will, and they will call you out.

Professor Stobaugh: The reality is that practitioners are using it, so ignoring AI is a disservice to students. It would be like making students research only out of books in the library when everyone else uses an electronic database. If we want our students to be practice-ready, being practice-ready includes teaching them how to use AI ethically and responsibly.

Jade: The first step is exposure. Most of the skepticism comes from people who have never actually tried it. Getting your hands dirty with Harvey gives you a real feel for its strengths, its benefits, and its limits, and it shows how far ahead a school can put its students. At the firms where I have worked alongside people from other schools, you can tell the SMU people. We are ahead of the game.