Cubby Law AI boosts law students' GPAs by up to 0.55 points
Law school is widely recognized for its intense competitive environment, where post-graduation career prospects often hinge significantly on a student’s grade point average. These crucial GPAs are predominantly shaped by final exams, which are typically graded on a demanding curve. To help students navigate this high-stakes landscape, professors traditionally provide comprehensive syllabi, detailed course outlines, and practice exams featuring hypothetical legal scenarios, often accompanied by sample essay responses for preparation.
Building on these foundational resources, a startup named Cubby has introduced Cubby Law, an AI-powered study tool designed to enhance the value of existing study materials. This innovative platform can generate an essentially limitless number of practice exam questions and, crucially, evaluate student responses based on what the system anticipates a specific professor’s expectations and grading criteria would be. "We try to help the student understand exactly how the professor is going to be writing these different fact patterns based on the content that they’ve specifically learned, and what he’s looking for, and how he’s grading them,” explains Truman Sacks, Cubby cofounder and CEO.
In its pilot phase during the spring semester, an early version of Cubby Law was utilized by approximately 100 paying law students. According to Sacks, this cohort saw their average GPA improve by a notable 0.25 to 0.55 points. The AI’s impressive performance stems from its training on thousands of law school practice exams, many of which are publicly available on university websites. Its efficacy was further refined by students uploading their class-specific materials, allowing the AI to tailor its feedback and question generation.
A new version of Cubby Law, set to launch on August 25, promises an array of expanded features. Among these is an intelligent calendar that automatically populates from students’ syllabi, providing a precise reading schedule for each course. Additionally, Cubby Law can now create relevant quizzes throughout the semester, a function Sacks likens to the continuous learning models of platforms like Khan Academy and Duolingo. This encourages consistent study habits, moving beyond the traditional cramming sessions before finals. Sacks emphasizes the benefit: “You can see if you’re able to effectively apply and understand the knowledge as you’re going through the semester, instead of just waiting toward the very end, trying to learn everything at once and cramming.”
The updated software also incorporates an extensive library of case briefs for thousands of legal cases commonly taught in law school. The AI can adapt these briefs to suit a particular class, ensuring students focus on the precedents most pertinent to their current studies.
Priced at $30 per month, Cubby Law’s specialized training for the legal field gives it a distinct advantage over more general-purpose AI programs such as ChatGPT, Sacks argues. This perspective is echoed by Liam Willis, a rising second-year law student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who participated in Cubby’s pilot program. Willis recounted his earlier attempts to use ChatGPT as a “study buddy” by uploading materials and requesting questions. However, ChatGPT often fell short, generating weaker questions and offering overly enthusiastic praise rather than the critical feedback essential for legal studies. Cubby’s AI, by contrast, provided detailed and actionable critiques. Willis attests that the tool not only helped him grasp legal concepts but also honed his ability to effectively answer exam questions, including understanding which points to emphasize. This guidance directly contributed to his GPA increasing by more than half a point. “It helped me figure out how to answer the exam question, as opposed to just knowing the answer to the exam question,” he states.
Beyond exam preparation, students discovered other benefits even with the earlier version of the software. Mia Bartschi, entering her second year at the University of California’s law school in San Francisco, found that the AI helped her identify specific areas requiring more practice. “It has the ability to check your answer against your outline, and it was able to flag areas that I needed to practice more,” she noted, adding that her GPA subsequently rose by 0.2 points.
Cubby Law evolved from an earlier product, also called Cubby, which was initially conceived as a general-purpose research tool for analyzing and summarizing documents and videos—a digital “cubby hole” for various materials. However, when the development team observed that law students were predominantly using it as a study aid, they strategically pivoted to focus on this specialized market.
As part of its launch, Cubby plans to host in-person pop-up events featuring food and live demonstrations at law schools in New York City, where Sacks is based. The company, which comprises a team of approximately seven and has secured $2.75 million in funding, is also considering expanding into additional areas of study in the future, including preparation for the bar exam. This potential expansion could allow aspiring lawyers to continue leveraging the technology even after graduating from law school.