Long before artificial intelligence became a defining topic in legal education, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law professor Emerson Tiller was asking a broader question: How should law schools prepare students for a profession that is rapidly changing?
During more than two decades at Northwestern Pritzker Law, that question has shaped his work. Tiller serves as the J. Landis Martin Professor of Law & Business, Director of West Coast Initiatives, affiliated faculty member with the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, and courtesy Professor of Business Law at the Kellogg School of Management. His appointments, spanning both law and business, continue to inform an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, teaching, and academic innovation.
Throughout his 23-year tenure at the Law School, he has helped shape educational programs that prepare students for the rapidly evolving intersection of law, business, and technology. Today, as AI transforms legal practice, many of those efforts have taken on renewed significance.
“My own scholarship has focused on judicial decision-making and the ways courts structure and communicate legal decisions,” Tiller says. “While that work is distinct from artificial intelligence, many of the same questions about institutions, decision-making, and the evolution of legal systems remain highly relevant as AI becomes more deeply integrated into legal practice.”
While Tiller has become widely known within Northwestern Pritzker Law for creating innovative academic programs, his leadership is grounded in decades of influential scholarship examining how legal institutions function. A nationally recognized scholar in positive political theory and law and economics, his research explores judicial decision making, administrative law, intellectual property, and the strategic interactions among courts, legislatures, and regulatory agencies. Applying game theory, empirical methods, and institutional analysis, his scholarship has illuminated how judges write opinions, how political institutions influence legal outcomes, and how legal doctrine evolves over time. His work has appeared in many of the nation’s leading law journals, including the Journal of Law & Economics, Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and the Journal of Legal Studies.
Throughout his tenure, Tiller has played a central role in developing several of the Law School’s signature academic initiatives. He helped architect the Master of Science in Law (MSL) program, directed the accelerated JD and LLM programs, and later designed the Law School’s West Coast Initiatives, each reflecting a commitment to preparing students for an increasingly interdisciplinary and ever-evolving legal profession.
Among Tiller’s most notable contributions to the Law School is the West Coast Initiative. Students study the industries driving technological, entrepreneurial, entertainment, and business innovation. Each year, approximately 15 to 20 students spend a semester in San Francisco studying the legal dimensions of technology and entrepreneurship while working with leading technology companies. Another cohort studies in Los Angeles, where coursework and internships focus on the legal and business challenges shaping the entertainment and sports industries.
“For the San Francisco program, the vision was to immerse students in the innovation economy by combining coursework focused on technology, entrepreneurship, and the legal issues shaping Silicon Valley with hands-on work inside leading companies,” Tiller says. “We wanted students to understand not only the law governing these industries, but also how legal counsel contributes to innovation from within.”
Students participating in the San Francisco program have worked with organizations including OpenAI, Rivian, Stripe, eBay, biotechnology companies, fintech startups, and emerging software firms, collaborating with attorneys navigating some of the most complex legal questions arising from rapidly evolving technologies.
The Los Angeles program follows the same immersive model while leveraging Southern California’s position as a global center for entertainment and sports.
“We created a program modeled after our San Francisco experience but tailored to the unique legal and business landscape of entertainment and sports,” Tiller says. “Students pair specialized coursework in entertainment and sports law with internships at leading organizations, allowing them to see how lawyers navigate these dynamic industries in practice.”
Students have completed internships with organizations including Sony Pictures, Universal Music Group, IMAX, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, connecting classroom learning with the legal and strategic issues confronting some of the world’s most recognizable brands.
As artificial intelligence reshapes the technology sector, Tiller has helped ensure the San Francisco program evolves alongside it. New courses examine topics such as AI technologies, governance, and investing, while existing offerings in venture capital, intellectual property, and privacy increasingly address the legal questions emerging around AI. Students also work with companies at the forefront of AI innovation, allowing them to examine these issues as they unfold in practice.
“Our goal is to prepare students for the legal marketplace they’re entering—not the one that existed five years ago,” Tiller says. “We’ve expanded both our curriculum and our industry partnerships so students gain an understanding of the technologies that are increasingly shaping legal practice.”
Among those partnerships are internships with organizations including OpenAI, Cursor, Stripe, Rivian, FlexAI, and Groq, where students see firsthand how lawyers help organizations navigate the legal and policy questions surrounding artificial intelligence.
That preparation extends beyond technical knowledge.
“What we’re seeing is the rapid adoption of legal AI platforms that are becoming integral to modern legal practice,” Tiller says. “Students are becoming familiar with the technologies they are likely to encounter in law firms and corporate legal departments. Familiarity with these tools is becoming an important component of professional readiness for the next generation of lawyers.”
Tiller also believes AI is creating new professional pathways for lawyers beyond traditional practice.
“Companies developing legal technologies are increasingly hiring attorneys to help shape these platforms,” he says. “As AI continues to evolve, those roles will become an even more important part of the legal profession.”
Rather than restricting students’ use of AI, Northwestern Pritzker Law has focused on helping them develop sound professional judgment.
“Our philosophy has been to give students meaningful opportunities to engage with AI rather than approach the technology primarily through restriction,” Tiller says. “Because these tools are already reshaping legal practice, it’s important that students learn how to use them thoughtfully and responsibly while they’re in law school.”
For Tiller, preparing students for the future of law has always meant looking beyond the traditional classroom. Whether developing interdisciplinary degree programs, building partnerships with industry leaders, or expanding Northwestern Pritzker Law’s presence on the West Coast, his work reflects a belief that legal education must continually evolve alongside the profession it serves.
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