Professor Burkhard Schafer’s Max Weber Lecture at the European University Institute explores AI's impact on the legal profession
Fri 30 May 2025
Earlier this month, Professor Burkhard Schafer, Professor of Computational Legal Theory, delivered the Max Weber Lecture at the European University Institute (EUI), addressing the transformative effects of generative AI on the legal profession.
In his lecture titled "Rebooting Weber: Legal Honoratorien in the Age of GenAI," Professor Schafer revisited Max Weber's concept of 'Rechtshonoratioren' to examine how contemporary AI tools, particularly large language models, are reshaping legal practice.
The lecture sparked in-depth discussions on the intersections of law, technology, and authority, as well as the implications of these shifts for professional ethics and the legitimacy of legal systems.
The Max Weber Lectures are a prestigious series hosted monthly by the EUI's Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies. They feature distinguished scholars from various disciplines who address topical issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, aiming to engage the EUI academic community as a whole.
Watch the recording of Professor Schafer's lecture