Last week, Mississippi College School of Law (MC Law) announced that it would become the first law school in Mississippi, and the first in the Southeast, to require all students to complete an AI certification course prior to graduation. As AI is increasingly integrated into the legal profession, MC Law joins Case Western Reserve University School of Law as the second law school nationwide to establish a mandatory AI certification program.
“Whether our students plan to be litigators or transactional attorneys, their future employers will expect familiarity with these AI tools. We want the firms hiring our students to be confident that every MC Law grad is competent in AI technologies,” MC Law Dean John Anderson told The National Law Review (NLR).
The program is being designed and taught by Oliver Roberts, an adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Co-Director of the WashU Law AI Collaborative, and Founder and CEO of Wickard.ai.1
“Mississippi is uniquely positioned to lead in the AI revolution, and we’re proud to make that a reality through this historic and innovative partnership with MC Law,” said Roberts, who also taught the nation’s first required AI course at Case Western earlier this year.
Reflecting Mississippi’s growing AI leadership, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves recently awarded MC Law a $723,000 grant to establish the Center for AI Policy and Technology Leadership (CAPTL), a joint initiative between the law school and the MC School of Business. CAPTL leverages MC Law’s faculty AI expertise to inform lawmakers, legislative staff, and their outside advisors considering AI-related legislative initiatives, and helps track cutting-edge AI policy developments around the U.S.
MC Law’s inaugural Introduction to AI and the Law program reflects the law school’s latest efforts in AI leadership. Launching this spring, the program combines classroom AI instruction with practical AI tool training. According to Anderson, this groundbreaking program will span roughly 12–14 hours across four sessions, covering core AI concepts, prompting techniques, ethical considerations, and the evolving regulatory landscape. It will culminate in a certification assessment.
Anderson sees the program as part of a larger Mississippi AI ecosystem with MC Law “perfectly situated” by “the state capitol, the supreme court, the governor’s mansion, and our state’s largest law firms.” MC Law plans to expand CAPTL’s programming to educate and provide AI resources to state and regional leaders.
MC Law’s decision to expand its AI programming comes amid a growing trend among law schools adding AI education to their curricula. This new initiative suggests these mandates may soon become standard practice in legal education.
“Prospective law students want to know they will be prepared for the practice of law in the digital age, and employers will demand it. When other law schools see what we are doing, I expect they will follow suit,” Anderson added.
AI is quickly being integrated into the legal professions, just like it is in other businesses. For law firms, AI tools are simplifying administrative tasks, drafting contracts, researching case law, and assisting with other higher-level work. The next generation of lawyers will either be AI natives or risk becoming Luddites.
More and more law schools recognize that AI literacy must be part of their curricula, and it will inevitably become a key metric in program rankings. The National Law Review, alongside established leaders in tech and legal education, plans to provide the first rankings of law school AI programs in the Fall of 2026.2 The NLR Law School AI program rankings will be designed to help faculty and administrators evaluate and benchmark their programs. Perhaps more importantly, it will be a resource for applicants to evaluate how law schools are incorporating AI literacy into their curriculum. The NLR and its partners will share more on their planned ranking system – metrics, data sources, and law school participation – in the coming months.
Employers will demand that new hires have the tools to practice law in the digital age. Being able to compare law schools, and prospective hires, on an “apples-to-apples” basis calls for a ranking system. The emergence of independent organizations, like the NLR, to assess an institution’s commitment to incorporate essential AI skills will be an important step for the legal profession in this time of rapid adoption of AI.
There is no doubt that AI literacy is going to be a key metric in rankings moving forward. Law schools, like MC Law, that are at the vanguard of this digital transformation will be noticed by both law school applicants and employers.
1 Mr. Roberts also serves on the editorial board of The National Law Review’s “A&I and the Law” newsletter and several other of its AI-themed NLR-affiliated properties.
2 Academic institutions, researchers, or law students who are interested in participating in the design or data collection stage of the NLR Law School AI program ranking system may contact Gary Chodes at [email protected].