Case Western Reserve University School of Law built on its required legal AI certification in 2026 by asking every first-year student to design and prototype a legal technology solution.
The CWRU School of Law-Wickard 1L Vibe Coding Competition formed part of Introduction to AI and the Law, taught by Oliver Roberts. Students addressed legal workflows using AI-assisted development and relied on hypothetical or publicly available information.
Jamie Werner received the competition’s champion award for a project focused on local court rules, judges’ standing orders, and judicial information. Sophie Kwiatkowski received an honorable mention for an Ohio court AI-rules tracker.
The exercise gave students a concrete way to examine both the usefulness and the limitations of AI. A prototype could illustrate an idea, while still requiring scrutiny of sources, confidentiality, reliability, and the lawyer’s responsibility for the result.
Sources
National Law Review reporting February 25 2026
https://natlawreview.com/article/case-western-reserve-university-becomes-first-law-school-require-every-1l-student
