About the InstituteHelping the legal profession navigate AI
The AI and Law Institute at Washington & Lee School of Law helps lawyers, judges, and students understand AI well enough to use it effectively, safely, and defensibly.
Our mission
The Institute exists to help the legal profession navigate the rapidly evolving intersection of artificial intelligence, legal ethics, and professional responsibility. Our mission is to bridge the gap between a lawyer’s ethical duties in using AI tools and their obligation of technological competence as AI becomes central to modern legal practice.
What we do
The Institute trains law students, faculty, attorneys, and judges to understand the inner workings of AI systems, enabling them to use machine learning effectively, safely, and defensibly. This includes examining how AI training data, model design, and user interactions influence outcomes, and teaching practitioners how to reduce the risks of AI hallucinations, bias, misinformation, privacy breaches, and manipulation.
We run student programs, workshops, and speaker series exploring AI’s impact on litigation, access to justice, legal research, small-firm practice, BigLaw efficiency, judicial ethics, discovery, and algorithmic bias. By equipping the profession with this knowledge, we support the development of responsible AI governance and empower legal professionals to deploy AI with confidence, ethical clarity, and strategic insight.
Research and public engagement
The Institute serves as a hub for law faculty research on AI governance, machine learning regulation, and digital legal systems, helping promote shared best practices in responsible AI adoption across the academic community. Through public engagement, including research summaries, policy commentary, and expert analysis, we help students, lawyers, academics, and judges understand how AI may reshape the legal system and how to use the technology in ways that strengthen, rather than endanger, the rule of law.
Leadership
The Institute is directed by Prof. Josh Fairfield, the William Donald Bain Family Professor of Law and Director of Artificial Intelligence Legal Innovation Strategy at W&L Law. Meet the director →