As part of the OBA’s broader “Real Intelligence on AI” initiative, the AI Academy provides personalized learning pathways and interactive exercises that invite questions and encourage experimentation to help legal professionals embrace AI confidently and create customized tools and compliance guidelines.
Lawyers using the Academy begin with a “temperature check” survey on current AI awareness, helping to create a curated learning experience that they can further customize based on their interests and interactions. They can engage with a personalized AI assistant — named LawQi — and practise with AI applications, through exercises, quizzes and games, as they learn how to build tools they can leverage in their practice.
OBA president Kathryn Manning said lawyers are naturally curious about AI, but many people — including herself — haven’t been able to find enough hours in the day to explore the potential.
“Because the AI Academy helps you narrow the focus of your learning to the AI tools and applications that will be most valuable to your firm, organization or specialty, you don’t need to invest much time to take away just the practical knowledge you need,” she said.
Through the Academy, lawyers can access a repository of useful materials, with relevant insights from leading academics, tech experts and legal organizations. The course materials and the Academy’s sandbox tools refresh weekly.
Colin Lachance, the OBA’s innovator-in-residence and Academy designer, said every aspect of legal practice is feeling the impact of AI.
“You can either call it intrusion or revolution, depending on your perspective — but every tool you pick up and touch, you’re seeing an integration of an AI capability in the work and activities of your clients, and they are experiencing the same thing,” he said.
Every OBA member has free access to the AI Academy, and Ontario law students can get a free OBA membership and thus access to the tool as well.
Lachance said there will be dramatic shifts in the future in expectations of what lawyers are going to be doing, but despite fears in the legal profession — and basically every other profession — there will continue to be more than enough work for lawyers in the future.
“The best lawyers get better, and the ones who aren’t seeing the opportunity for growth do risk falling behind,” he said. “I think the opportunity for lawyers does grow as a group. It again, it just comes down to who is going to seize that opportunity.”
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