In This Episode...
I speak with Professor Tracy Norton, Louisianna State University School of Law, and Dr. Susan Tanner, Brandeis Law School, about the AI literacy. This episode is particularly helpful to those engaged in legal research.
About Our Guests...
Tracy L. M. Norton is the Erick Vincent Anderson Professor of Professional Practice at Louisiana State University's Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Prof. Norton is an accomplished legal educator and scholar whose significant contributions to the field of legal communication and pedagogy include published works and influential presentations. Her notable publications include the co-edited "Law Teaching Strategies for a New Era: Beyond the Physical Classroom" (2021) with Tessa Dysart, offering insights into innovative teaching methodologies for legal education. Norton began developing digital formative assessment tools for legal education in 1998 with her pioneering work, the "Interactive Citation Workbook" (2000-2024 editions) and accompanying Lexis+ Interactive Citation Workstation. This tool is in use in approximately half of U.S. law schools, underscoring her commitment to advancing legal education through technology. Norton's contributions extend to the national and international stages with presentations at leading legal education conferences, where she has addressed pressing issues such as the application of artificial intelligence in law practice and legal education, the transition to online teaching, and the challenges and opportunities presented by generational shifts in the legal profession. Through her scholarly work and advocacy for effective teaching strategies over the past 27 years, Prof. Norton has left an indelible mark on the landscape of legal education, blending rigorous analysis with a forward-thinking approach to pedagogy and law practice not only at LSU Law but also at Touro University School of Law in New York, South Texas College of Law in Houston, and Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock. She currently researches and writes about using generative artificial intelligence within the bounds of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
Dr. Susan Tanner, Assistant Professor of Law at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Professor Tanner teaches Lawyering Skills at Brandeis Law and was most recently an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and taught first-year Legal Research and Writing at the Law Center at Louisiana State University Law School.
Tanner served as the Assistant Director of First-Year Writing at Carnegie Mellon University, where she oversaw and mentored new writing faculty and helped develop the curriculum for a new first-year course, Writing about Public Problems, a course on written advocacy and proposal writing.
She received her PhD in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University, where she held the A.W. Mellon Digital Humanities Fellowship in 2016 and the William S. Dietrich II Presidential Doctoral Fellowship in 2017. She holds a Master’s degree in Rhetoric and Composition from Arizona State University and a JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where she was a Balfour Merit Scholar and graduated cum laude.
Her scholarship focuses on legal language and linguistic access to justice. Before entering academia, Professor Tanner worked in a variety of legal areas including complex litigation cases at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, education legislation for Students First, and taxpayer representation at a Low-Income Tax Clinic.