Artificial intelligence can help law students organise their courses better, prepare for exams and understand complex notions.
It must not, however, replace work on the sources or your own reasoning. In Swiss law, learning to check information is as important as saving time.
How to use AI during your law studies
AI can be useful for summarising a lecture, creating revision sheets, preparing flashcards or turning a long document into a synthesis that is easier to reread.
It can also help to transcribe a recorded lecture, organise a dissertation or rephrase a difficult notion in simpler words.
The aim is not to let the tool think in your place. It must help you understand the problem better, spot the important points and test your knowledge.
The conclusion and the legal reasoning must remain yours.
Why a general-purpose AI is not always enough in Swiss law
General-purpose assistants such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini can be useful for explaining a notion or structuring a text.
But they can also invent a statutory provision, cite a decision that does not exist or apply a foreign rule that does not match Swiss law.
For a student, this risk matters. An error in the source can send the whole reasoning in the wrong direction.
You must therefore always distinguish an answer that looks correct from an answer that has actually been checked.
These precautions also concern non-lawyers, as we explain in our article on legal AI for individuals.
Structuring your reasoning with AI
AI is particularly useful when it helps to organise a working method.
On a practical case, it can for example bring out the important facts, the legal questions and the rules that might apply.
You must then check the sources and rebuild the argument yourself.
This method makes it possible to work more actively: instead of accepting a ready-made answer, you check each step and you try to understand why a rule applies.
The risk of letting the tool reason in your place is set out in our article on AI-assisted legal analysis.
Creating revision sheets and exercises
AI can turn your own lecture notes into sheets, flashcards, quizzes or open questions.
This method makes it possible to vary revision and to spot more easily the notions that are still poorly mastered.
You can for example ask for simple questions on definitions, then move on to more complex cases that require a real application of the law.
The answers produced must, however, be compared with your lecture, the teacher’s documents and the official sources.
Working with different document formats
Law studies no longer rest only on books and text files. Students also work with PDFs, slides, scans and sometimes audio recordings.
AI can help to extract the text from a document, transcribe a lecture or gather several materials into a synthesis.
This flexibility is practical, but it also raises a confidentiality question. Before sending a document to an external service, check what it does with the data and whether the data can be kept or used to train a model.
Protecting personal data
The Federal Act on Data Protection also applies to processing carried out with artificial intelligence.
You must avoid sending a non-secure tool documents that contain names, financial information or other sensitive personal data.
This habit matters from the study years onwards, because it prepares you for the requirements of professional secrecy in legal practice.
The framework is explained in our article on AI and data protection. For the use of AI in a law firm, also see AI for lawyers.
Respecting academic integrity
Each university can set its own rules on the use of AI in assessed work.
Some uses are allowed, others must be declared and some may be prohibited depending on the course or the exercise.
The right question is therefore not whether an AI-generated text will be detected, but whether the work submitted actually reflects your own reasoning.
AI can help you understand a notion, search for leads or improve the form of a text. The analysis, the argument and the conclusion must remain personal.
Free version or paid subscription
For occasional use, a free version can be enough to discover a tool, summarise a simple text or test certain functions.
For regular use in law, you need above all to look at the quality of the sources, data protection and the tool’s ability to work with Swiss law.
Support for long documents and the research functions can also make a difference.
For students enrolled at a Swiss university, the Silex Campus offer is priced at CHF 29 per month, including VAT. The professional plans are presented on the Silex pricing page.
What distinguishes Silex from a general-purpose assistant
Silex is designed for legal research in Swiss law.
The tool links its answers to legal sources so that the user can open them and check them.
For a student, this approach makes it possible to focus more on the analysis of the law rather than on searching for references that may be incorrect.
According to Silex, users’ data is not used to train the models. The features are presented on the Silex product page and the technical guarantees on the security and professional secrecy page.
Silex in the tools used by professionals
Silex is also integrated into certain software used in legal practice.
The integration of Silex into WinLex and SkyLex makes it possible to carry out legal research without leaving one’s work environment.
The partnership between Silex and MCR Solutions also aims to integrate AI-assisted legal research into everyday processes.
For a student, knowing these tools also makes it possible to become familiar with the methods used in professional practice.
The private bank Bordier & Cie uses Silex for its legal research, while the partnership Silex and EXPERTsuisse concerns in particular audit, tax and fiduciary professionals.
Separating research from your own analysis
To learn the law well, you need to keep a clear separation between the information found and your own reasoning.
AI can provide statutory texts, decisions or lines of analysis. It is then up to you to understand the sources, relate them to one another and build your argument.
This distinction is essential in order to develop the critical mind expected of a lawyer.
For professionals, Silex also offers solutions by practice. To see the tool on a concrete question, you can book a demo.
Before submitting a piece of work
Before handing in work prepared with the help of an AI, check each legal reference in an official source and reread your reasoning in full.
Also make sure that you have not sent sensitive data to an unsuitable tool.
Finally, follow your university’s rules on the use and declaration of artificial intelligence.
In short
AI can help law students summarise lectures, prepare revisions, organise a practical case and search for sources.
It must not, however, produce the final reasoning in your place.
In Swiss law, always check the references used, protect sensitive data and follow the academic rules of your institution.
