UC BERKELEY LAW BANS AI USAGE!: Troutman Amin, LLP Applauds Bold Move by Brilliant Law School at World’s Greatest University

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Back in January Troutman Amin, LLP announced it was banning the use of GenAI at the law firm.

Legendary class action defends attorney and firm founder Eric Troutman decided the risk posed by GenAi to young lawyers (and the legal profession) was simply too profound–and the technology too unproven–to permit its use in connection with client work.

Troutman has since sharpened his critique of lawyers using GenAi and has called for disbarrments and bar investigations following continual misuse of the technology by so-called “elite” law firms. He has called AmLAw 100 adoption of tools like Harvey and Legora tantamount to “suicide.”

While Troutman Amin, LLP was the first powerhouse law firm to ban GenAI usage it will not be the last, and at least one elite law school has joined the battle against GenAI reliance in the practice of law– U.C. Berkeley Law.

Under the new policy:

The use of AI is prohibited for aid in conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit. AI use is prohibited for any use for any purpose in any exam situation. Students may not upload course materials—including assignments, readings, slides, class recordings, or other class content—into generative AI systems.

Specifically forbidden:

  • Asking an AI tool to brainstorm a paper topic or thesis (prohibited conceptualizing)
  • Asking an AI tool to propose an organizational structure for a paper (prohibited outlining)
  • Asking an AI tool to compose a paragraph summarizing a legal rule for use in a paper (prohibited drafting)
  • Asking an AI tool to identify repetitive passages in a paper that should be cut (prohibited revising)
  • Asking an AI tool to polish a paper by correcting grammatical mistakes (prohibited editing)
  • Asking AI to generate an exam outline, elements of which are then used on the exam (prohibited exam use)
  • Asking AI to translate a paper originally  written in another language into English (prohibited translating)

This is a beautiful thing.

Now a lot of people are going to say U.C. Berkeley Law copied Troutman Amin, LLP here. We are–after all– the official law firm of U.C. Berkeley and Cal Athletics. And Troutman is one of U.C. Berkeley’s more famous alums– having graduated near the top of his class (and a semester early) back in 1999.

So maybe they did.

But that’s not clear.

What is clear is that elite law firms and law schools are wisely banning the use of GenAi to assure clients are receiving correct and useful guidance and legal work and not junk roborepresentation.

Indeed, Troutman Amin, LLP has recently landed commitments from new law clerks with elite backgrounds who were specifically drawn to the Anti-GenAI culture at the firm.

“This has been a real selling point for the firm to attract the highest quality talent.” Troutman says. “When you see college graduates booing GenAI discussion at commencements you need to be listening to that. “The youth want to become great lawyers. They want to develop real legal skills. They want to become courtroom giants. They don’t want to be raised by GenAi to be prompt polishers.”

Troutman Amin, LLP is a national law firm focused on telecom, data privacy, AI and emerging technology compliance and litigation. The firm is famous for handling multi-billion dollar complex litigation matters in federal courts across the nation and recently landed former-GC William Fife III to anchor its Dallas, TX office.

“The firm has seen 15 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and is on pace to have its three best months ever right in a row.” Troutman says. “We’ve done it handling the toughest cases on Earth against some of the best lawyers on Earth. There’s never been anything like it– and smart lawyers across the nation continue to clamor to join the firm. We look forward to hiring some of these very well educated U.C. Berkeley Law students very soon!”

 

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Published by Eric "Czar" Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

1 Comment

  1. It’s inevitable. There is no stopping it.

    And now with offline models, the ability to creative massive vector databases along with api calls to Claude and gpt for logic/ reasoning it’s going to get better and better. But go ahead, exaggerate the few early cases when it didn’t work. The days of $200,000 educations, or the high cost of entry to litigate will soon be over.

    Reply

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