Professor Patrick Barry has been named to a new role as director of artificial intelligence initiatives for Michigan Law.
Barry will help coordinate the Law School’s expanding portfolio of AI-related initiatives. He’ll focus in particular on skills training and student programming, as well as on connecting AI-related efforts across the Law School.
In 2026, the school launched the AI Law and Policy Clinic and established an AI Advisory Council. This work is in concert with other initiatives and research projects spearheaded by Michigan Law faculty on issues related to AI.
“AI is reshaping both the legal world and our broader society,” Neel U. Sukhatme, David A. Breach Dean of Law and professor of law, said in announcing the appointment. “Along with our many talented faculty working in this field, Patrick’s work will help ensure we remain leaders in preparing our students to apply these tools effectively and responsibly.”
Barry described the appointment as a dream job. “I get to team up with faculty members who are doing creative and important AI research. I get to work with students on how to prepare for a world in which AI may be both a collaborator and a competitor. And I get to learn from people all across the university who understand that AI is a multi-faceted technology that requires high-quality interdisciplinary approaches to leveraging its benefits and mitigating its risks.
“Pursuing any one of those opportunities would be great. That this new position means I get to pursue all three—and many more—is like winning the occupational lottery.”
Barry—who created the online course AI for Lawyers and Other Advocates and is the author of the forthcoming book AI Tips and Traps—will teach two Michigan Law classes in the fall semester: AI Sandbox and Editing, Advocacy, and AI.
“AI Sandbox gives students a chance to play around with—and critically evaluate— various AI tools,” Barry said. “Editing, Advocacy, and AI, on the other hand, focuses more on writing. We are going to explore the idea that there can be a mutually reinforcing relationship between being ‘good with words’ and being ‘good with AI.’”
“The better you are with words,” he explained, “the better you can become with AI, particularly given that so many of the current models reward people who can provide specific, context-rich instructions. Similarly, the better you are with AI, the better you can become with words, if—and this is certainly a big ‘if’—you are very thoughtful and strategic about using AI to sharpen your thinking, widen your perspective, and systematically improve the way you communicate. My hope is that students will, by the end of the course, learn how to use AI less as an ego-inflatting flatterer or wholesale substitute for their brain and more as a skill-building editor.”
In addition to the courses, Barry will lead a series of lunch talks for incoming students on how to navigate the pros and cons of using AI as a study tool. He will also serve as a resource for faculty, staff, alumni, and organizations looking to become more AI savvy.
From their earliest days in the Law Quad, students will be encouraged to think about AI and its implications for practice. Barry and Professor Salomé Viljoen will kick things off at new student orientation in August with a session called “Skilled Skeptics: How to Thrive in Law School in the Age of AI.”
“To grapple with this technology, students are going to need to understand how to use AI tools and how not to be misled by them,” Barry said. “We’re going to try to start instilling that combination of technical understanding and cognitive vigilance before classes even start.”
Barry’s overarching goal is to establish Michigan Law as a place known for producing graduates who are particularly well-suited for the emerging AI world: “I want people to know that if they hire a lawyer who went to Michigan, they will be getting someone who is really good at AI and really good at a lot of other other things too, including being an imaginative, analytical, and empathetic human being.”