AI is going to change the practice of law and the teaching of it faster than most of the profession is ready for, and the response so far has been a mix of panic and denial. Greg McNeal speaks on AI and the law from inside both worlds, as a tenured law professor who teaches with these tools and writes about how to govern them, and as someone who has built and advised technology companies.
At Pepperdine he teaches AI governance and privacy law, and he is writing a casebook titled Learning Privacy Law and AI Governance. He serves on his university’s AI Steering Committee, and he is not a consultant studying the legal profession from outside. He is in the classroom and the faculty meeting where these questions are being fought over, which gives the talk a grounding most do not have.
The short version: AI is reshaping both how law is practiced and how it is taught, and the legal profession is split between those adapting and those in denial. Greg is a tenured law professor who teaches AI and technology law and has built AI companies, so the talk gives law firms, law schools, and legal teams a grounded read on what AI actually changes in legal work, and what to do about it.
What the talk delivers
How AI is changing what lawyers actually do, and which parts of legal work are most and least exposed. What legal education has to confront, from academic integrity to the skills students now need. How the profession should think about competence, ethics, and reliability when the tools can draft but cannot be trusted unsupervised. And how to prepare for all of it without either banning the technology or surrendering to it.
Who books it
Law schools, bar associations, legal conferences, law firms, and universities thinking seriously about AI in legal education and practice. Greg tailors the talk to the audience, whether faculty, practitioners, or students.
A view from inside both law and technology
Most people talking about AI and the law come from one side or the other: technologists who do not understand legal practice, or lawyers who do not understand the technology. Greg sits at the intersection. He is a tenured professor of law and public policy who teaches technology, AI, and privacy law, and he has built and governed AI companies. That dual vantage point is what the talk runs on, because the interesting questions about AI and law live precisely where the technology meets the practice.
The legal profession is unusually exposed to AI, because so much of legal work is exactly what current AI is good at: reading documents, drafting text, summarizing, and finding patterns in large bodies of material. That makes the profession’s response a high-stakes test case, and it is splitting the field into those who are adapting thoughtfully and those who are pretending nothing is happening. The talk is for the first group, and for anyone who wants to join it.
What AI actually changes in legal work
| Legal task | What AI does to it |
|---|---|
| Document review and discovery | Dramatically faster, with a lawyer supervising |
| Drafting routine documents | First drafts in minutes, edited by a lawyer |
| Legal research | Accelerated, but requires checking for fabrication |
| Judgment and strategy | Assisted, not replaced |
| Client relationships and advocacy | Largely untouched |
Read down the table and the pattern is the familiar one: AI takes over the routine, document-heavy tasks and leaves the judgment, strategy, and relationship work to the lawyer. The role does not vanish; its center of gravity shifts toward the parts AI cannot do.
What the talk gives a legal audience
The keynote sends law firms, legal departments, and law schools out with a realistic picture of what AI changes in their work, free of both the hype and the denial. They leave able to tell which AI legal tools are actually useful and which are risky, including the real danger of models that fabricate citations. They leave with a sense of how the role of the lawyer is shifting toward judgment and away from document processing, and what that means for how they hire, train, and bill. And for law schools, the talk addresses the harder question of how to prepare students for a profession that is changing under them. If your firm or school faces a specific decision, the talk can be aimed at it.
FAQ
What does Greg’s AI and the law talk cover?
How AI changes legal practice and education, what it means for competence and ethics, and how to prepare without panic or denial.
What is his standing to speak on it?
He is a tenured law professor writing a casebook on AI governance and privacy, teaching with these tools and helping govern AI on campus.
What makes Greg qualified to speak on AI and the law?
He is a tenured professor of law and public policy who teaches technology, AI, and privacy law, and he has built and governed AI companies. He works in both legal practice and the technology, which is where the hard questions about AI and law come up.
Who is the AI and the law talk for?
Law firms, legal departments, and law schools. It gives practitioners a realistic read on which AI tools actually help and which are risky, how the lawyer’s role is shifting toward judgment, and, for law schools, how to prepare students for a profession changing under them.
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