Centre for Legal Education and the Legal Profession (CLELP) Speaker Series
Professor Luke Mason – Friday 5 December, 12-1pm GMT
Legal Thinking as a Technology: Post-Human Modalities and Legal Education and Practice
You can register here: CLELP Speaker Series – Professor Luke Mason
GenAI and connected technologies will disrupt legal practice and the content of the law in multifarious ways. However, much of the source of moral panic within legal education, and of the excitement and anxiety around technological disruption within the provision of legal services, stems from the way in which LLMs seem to be able to mimick human legal reasoning. This paper examines the nature of legal reason and how the specific human modalities of law’s epistemic core possess their own technological essence. The author seeks to show that while GenAI can mimick and simulate certain legal modalities very successfully, this also highlights the things which only humans should do and how these can be used innovatively (or not) in both education and practice.
About the Speaker
Luke Mason is a philosopher and legal theorist whose work focuses on labour law, legal philosophy and legal education. He joined the University of Westminster in 2021 as Professor of Jurisprudence and Head of Westminster Law School.
Luke’s research covers a broad range of fields. His primary doctrinal interest lies in labour law and social policy, in particular the legal construction and regulation of economic relationships in the context of work. Much of Luke’s work also looks at the nature of legal reasoning and thought, and their relationship with other areas of culture, as well as legal education and learning. Some of his recent work has explored the themes of his research in collaboration with artists, including the co-production of films, the display of works in museum exhibitions, and performative projects involving public engagement with legal and political philosophy. He has also worked extensively as a consultant and within policy in the UK and abroad.
