A sought-after thought leader and speaker on AI and legal ethics, Tanner was featured in  She also was awarded the  in 2025 and received recognition for her pioneering work in developing 

Tanner took the time to speak with UofL News about the growing influence of AI and her work with educators, students and legal doctrine. 

UofL News: What AI applications do you use with your law students and for your own work? 

Tanner: For students, I can show them how to create and use bots to quiz them effectively. Instead of just asking AI for the answer, they can ask it to question them, push back on their reasoning, identify gaps and help them practice explaining a doctrine or argument. I also show students how AI can help them practice oral arguments or professional communication by using a bot to play the role of a judge, a supervising attorney or a client. 

Used that way, AI does not replace the work; it gives them more chances to do the work.

For myself, I often use AI for organizing ideas, moving material from one format to another, drafting a first pass, making a table, or helping me see what I still need to think through. But I do not treat it as an authority and I am still responsible for the judgment, the accuracy and the final product.

UofL News: What do you say to people who say using AI is “cheating”?

Tanner: It can be. If students use AI to outsource thinking, then they are cheating themselves out of an education. They may produce something that looks finished, but they have not developed the reasoning, judgment, or skill that the assignment was designed to teach.

With students, the question should not be simply, “Did you use AI?” The better question is, “How did you use it?” Did it help you learn, practice, revise and understand? Or did it replace your thinking? Those are quite different things.

With faculty, I think one of the more important things is to move the conversation away from “AI is allowed” or “AI is banned.” The better questions are: What are we trying to teach? What do students need to learn? When does AI help with that learning? When does it get in the way? The AI toolkit I developed can help faculty and administrators think through those questions more concretely.

I also worry about students skipping productive struggle. Some struggle is important. If the work is too easy, it may not be much teaching. Students need to struggle with cases, rules, facts, uncertainty and revision. AI can support that process, but it can also short-circuit it.

UofL News: You are now teaching an AI and the Law class. How will this class prepare law students for the road ahead?

Tanner: The course is mostly about the law of AI and the doctrine that is developing around AI which includes things like privacy, discrimination, employment, intellectual property, torts, constitutional questions, legal ethics and platform governance. 

I really enjoy teaching this class because students need practice learning how to adapt to evolving law, and this class lets students see law being made in real time, working with unsettled doctrine, new statutes, regulatory guidance and cases that do not always fit neatly into older categories. That is good preparation for practice because lawyers are going to have to advise clients in areas where the technology and the law are both changing.

The class is also a little bit about how to use generative AI. I want students to understand that AI competence is not just knowing what prompt to type. It is knowing how to use the tool critically and responsibly while still doing the legal thinking themselves.

UofL News: As an early adopter of this technology, how do you see your role now in the world of AI?

Tanner: AI is not just a new tool that suddenly appeared. Before everyone was talking about generative AI, I was already working with language data, computational methods, machine-learning-adjacent questions, privacy and technology.

I think my role is often to translate between communities: legal doctrine, legal education, rhetoric, language technology and the practical questions lawyers are facing right now.

I am interested in what the tools can do, but I am also interested in how language makes them seem more authoritative than they are, how people decide whether to trust them, and how lawyers and students should learn to evaluate them.

UofL News: What do you see as the biggest benefits that AI could bring into the study and practice of law?

Tanner: One of the biggest benefits for students is more practice in independent learning. When used well, AI can allow students to quiz themselves, test their understanding, ask for feedback, practice explaining rules and work through hypotheticals. 

For lawyers, one of the biggest benefits is that AI can reduce some of the friction around routine professional work. It can help organize information, make a rough draft, summarize material, create a table, format ideas, or help someone see what questions still need to be answered. 

At the same time, I am concerned that if everyone is expected to produce more, faster and with fewer resources, then AI may not make work easier but just increase the pressure. The future of work will depend on whether we use AI to support human judgment and creativity, or whether we use it simply to demand more output from people.

About Cardinal Intelligence

Cardinal Intelligence empowers the University of Louisville to lead and learn in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) with human-centered guidance and responsibility. For generations, Cardinals have embraced technology, expanding how we learn, discover, connect and work. While AI raises important questions, our students, faculty, researchers and staff bring the curiosity and innovation needed to find answers. Through Cardinal Intelligence, we are shaping how UofL uses AI to advance our university and uncover solutions that strengthen the communities we serve.