The rapid rise of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT has forced educators into a difficult position: How should students be using this technology?
Some institutions have moved to restrict it, while others are experimenting with ways to integrate it into the classroom. At the University of Illinois College of Law, a group of entrepreneurs are seizing the moment and turning AI into the foundation for a new startup.
On any given day, the law school looks much as it always has. Students sift through dense casebooks, compile outlines and prepare for final exams that often determine their entire grade. The structure of legal education hasn’t changed. But the tools students use to navigate it are beginning to.
Enter NomosLearning – an AI-powered platform created by Illinois law students who saw an opportunity not only to improve how they learn, but to step into the startup arena themselves.
Co-founder Bobby Mannis, a 2025 College of Law graduate, said the idea for NomosLearning didn’t originally start as a business plan. In 2023, Mannis began using ChatGPT to study for his classes, spending hours learning how to prompt the technology effectively. That semester, he received three awards for earning the highest grade in his classes.
“I had learned how to use AI for my studying really successfully, but I had spent hours and hours and hours trying to figure out how to ask AI the right questions and how to get it to give me the right feedback,” Mannis said. “And I thought, I wish that other students could have easy access to the hard work that I put in to figure out how to get AI to work for me.”
Mannis took his idea to Harrison Grias, a software engineer and fiancé of a fellow classmate, and asked if they could build something that would work for other students: “That was the genesis of NomosLearning,” Mannis said.
NomosLearning was built to address a gap in how law students prepare for exams, said Mannis. Specifically, the platform addresses the lack of realistic practice problems.
“The way law students are tested is unusual,” he said. “You’re given a hypothetical scenario and have to break down the law into its elements, then apply the facts to determine whether those elements are met.”
While some professors may provide a limited number of those hypotheticals, Mannis said students often need far more repetition to be fully prepared. NomosLearning uses artificial intelligence to generate those practice scenarios on demand, giving students what he described as “more at-bats” ahead of exams. Then, it provides tailored feedback on student responses to help refine their legal analysis and writing skills.
Mannis said feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive, both at U of I’s campus and beyond. “We have hundreds of users at the University of Illinois, where we have an institutional partnership, and also students at schools like Loyola, Harvard, Stanford and UC Berkeley,” he said.
But the response hasn’t been limited to students. Mannis said meetings with U of I’s law professors – initially ranging from skeptical to curious – have also played a key role in shaping the platform.
While developing NomosLearning, the student co-founders worked with roughly a dozen professors at Illinois’ College of Law to refine its content and functionality. Faculty provided detailed feedback on both legal accuracy and writing structure, helping ensure the platform teaches not only correct analysis but also how to communicate it effectively.
That collaboration has since expanded into classroom use.
Through a feature called “NomosProfessor,” instructors piloting the program at U of I create customized hypotheticals, model answers and grading rubrics, allowing students to practice with materials tailored directly to their course.
The tool also gives professors new visibility into student performance. A built-in dashboard highlights trends in student responses, showing which legal issues students consistently understand and where they struggle, allowing instructors to adjust their teaching in real time.
“It’s been exciting to see that what we’re building isn’t just helpful for students,” Mannis said, “but can actually change how classes are taught.”
Gabriela De La Llana, a third-year law student at U of I and the company’s founding growth manager, joined the team after initially using NomosLearning during its early pilot phase in fall 2024. After seeing its potential, she wanted to help bring it to a broader audience.
Unlike general AI tools, De La Llana said NomosLearning is designed to guide students through the reasoning process rather than simply provide answers.
“It’s not going to do the thinking for you,” she said. “But it can help you develop your own thinking if it’s used the right way.”
De La Llana said having current students and recent graduates leading the startup gives NomosLearning a unique advantage as students prepare for a profession where AI literacy is increasingly expected.
“The world that’s preparing legal professionals today is not the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago,” De La Llana said. “Students and recent graduates are often closest to the changing expectations of the profession. We’re hearing directly from employers in job interviews what they want to see. Some expect AI literacy, some don’t, but it’s clearly becoming part of the reality.”
Still, Mannis said one of the biggest challenges has been overcoming skepticism around AI’s role in the education landscape: “A lot of people are nervous about it,” he said. “But when they actually see what we’re doing, they realize it’s not replacing learning. It’s helping students learn better.”
Annie Fulgenzi is a law student at University of Illinois. She previously interned at Springfield Business Journal and Illinois Times while studying journalism at SIUE.
This article appears in May SBJ 2026.