As artificial intelligence reshapes how students access information, a textbook drive at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) has highlighted why reading, critical thinking, and engagement with authoritative legal sources remain essential to legal education.
Mandela Month
The initiative, held at the UWC Faculty of Law at the end of July 2026 as part of Mandela Month, was organised by ProBono.Org, the Cape Town Attorneys Association, and the Bar Council of South Africa. Textbooks collected from members of the legal profession were donated to UWC law students. The drive was prompted by the continued financial barriers many students face in accessing prescribed and recommended textbooks.
UWC lecturer and Law Faculty community engagement coordinator Cherith Sanger said that while students could access information through online platforms and artificial intelligence (AI), these tools could not replace the value of engaging with legal texts in depth. “Many students at UWC do not have textbooks. They have to go to the library at specific times of the day when the library is open to study,” she said.
Students may also rely on short-term textbook loans, where demand can exceed the number of available copies. Access to online resources can pose additional challenges for students who lack reliable internet or data access. For Sanger, this makes initiatives such as the textbook drive an important contribution to educational access. The initiative also provided an opportunity to consider the changing role of textbooks in the age of AI.
Powerful tool
Sanger said AI could be a powerful tool, particularly for those who already have a strong understanding of their field. However, she cautioned against students relying on AI as their primary source of legal information. “I am concerned when it comes to young people and students who are learning the law and do not necessarily know the intricacies of the law,” she said.
The concern, she explained, is that students could use AI to summarise complex legal concepts and judgments without developing a deeper understanding of the law or the reasoning behind a court’s decision. AI may not always accurately summarise cases or capture the intricacies of a judgment, including the distinction between majority and minority judgments. This could leave students with an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of both the law and how a judge reached a particular conclusion.
For Sanger, reading a full judgment was therefore an important part of legal education. “There is value in reading a full judgment because it is not just about teaching you what the law is and how that case was decided. It also does something else,” she said.
Engaging directly with judgments allows students to understand how judges approach legal questions, analyse the facts, and apply legal principles to reach their decisions. This process is essential to developing the ability to construct legal arguments and think critically about the law. She said this is particularly important as students progress through the LLB and encounter increasingly complex legal concepts.
Accessible
While AI can make information more accessible, she cautioned that over-reliance on summaries could undermine the development of the very skills law students need as future legal professionals — including reading, writing, research, and critical thinking. Final-year LLB student Sinoyolo Ngantweni, who represented the Law Students’ Faculty Representative Committee, said textbooks remain important despite the rise of digital resources and AI. “Hard-copy textbooks promote a culture of reading that legal practitioners should embody,” said Ngantweni.
However, he acknowledged that textbooks are expensive, making initiatives that improve access to them particularly important.
Chairperson of the Cape Town Attorneys Association and a director in ENS’s litigation department Refilwe Mphego said textbooks should remain the foundation of legal research. “If I am looking for an answer for the law of evidence, the first place that I would go to look is in the textbook on a chapter dealing with the topic, and then from there I can go to AI,” said Mphego.
Supplementary tool
In this way, AI could be used as a supplementary tool to help students explore questions and identify possible developments in the law. However, information generated by AI still needs to be verified against authoritative sources, including legislation, textbooks, and case law. “The textbook is still important because it is verified,” she said.
Masi Ncube, regional manager at ProBono.Org, also cautioned against the risks of relying on AI without verifying its information.AI could generate inaccurate citations and sources, he said, making it essential for students and legal practitioners to develop strong research skills and engage directly with legal materials. “Although AI is an important tool that can assist them, they need to embrace a culture of reading, a culture of critical thinking, and that can only be done through engaging thoroughly with the law, legislation, and case law,” Ncube said.
The need for access to textbooks also highlights the legal profession’s role in supporting future lawyers. Ncube explained the legal profession needs to develop a culture of giving back, while Mphego called for the textbook drive to grow through greater support from the private sector: “Textbooks are expensive, and it can never be okay for a young person to miss out on a textbook.”
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