Inside the Law School’s AI Lab

Editor’s Note: This is part of a series called UChicago Class Visits, spotlighting transformative classroom experiences and unique learning opportunities offered at UChicago.

Marley McAliley, a former public relations professional at Google, didn’t imagine when she pivoted to law school that she’d be writing PR pitches for a tech product as part of her coursework. 

But that’s exactly what she did this past Autumn Quarter in the University of Chicago Law School’s inaugural AI Lab, a first-of-its-kind workshop designed to teach law students how to build and distribute an AI-powered legal tool. 
 

The tool they built was LeaseChat, a generative AI chatbot that helps renters understand their lease agreements and legal rights as tenants. Released to the public last December, LeaseChat is available for free, filling an access-to-justice gap for people who can’t afford an attorney, but who would benefit from legal help to navigate landlord/tenant laws, which differ across states, cities and counties.  

The lab was led by Kimball Dean Parker, JD'13, a legal tech entrepreneur passionate about using technology to improve business and people's lives.  

McAliley said she was “inspired” by the experience. 

“I had this opportunity to make a positive impact in my community in this very tangible way,” McAliley said. “Having this experience in law school was personally important to me.”  

A student-led project 

McAliley’s interest in AI grew out of her time at Google. One of the things that led her to law school was a desire to help fix disparities in economic and social issues—in the lab, she saw an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of how to leverage AI for the public good.  

Fellow student Alfredo Taboada was interested in the AI Lab for a similar reason. Before coming to UChicago Law for the one-year master of laws (LLM) program, he was a lawyer in private practice in his home country of Colombia. But down the road, Taboada envisions himself leveraging AI to help improve Colombia’s governance. 

“I feel that a lot of issues in the public sector [such as] general inefficiencies, bureaucratic corruption ... can be solved through artificial intelligence,” he said. “The possibilities are extremely exciting to me.” 

Unlike McAliley, Taboada arrived at the lab with little AI experience. He thought the class would be a programming boot camp of sorts, but Parker’s approach exceeded his expectations.  

“Kimball ran the class like a start-up,” he said. “Every class felt like a team meeting. He assigned each of us a responsibility based on our unique skills and backgrounds.” 

When Parker, who is the CEO of legal tech startup SixFifty, learned that student Adan Ordonez knew how to code, he quickly empowered him to take the lead in that lane.  

Ordonez built the prototype—using AI tools—in just a few days, which came as a surprise to everyone in the class, including Parker. A self-taught programmer with a working background in professional baseball, Ordonez brought a wealth of technical knowledge and prior experience building tech tools to the AI Lab. 

“If you become an expert at using AI tools and you are an expert in the law, you will have double the weapons to work faster and more efficiently.”

—Adan Ordonez, '27

“I come from a family of entrepreneurs,” said Ordonez, “and I came to law school because I thought learning the law would help me and my family’s business. Now that I’m here, I feel that so many doors have opened for me that I didn’t know existed, like the idea of pursuing a career in law and tech.” 

Learning by doing 

Like a start-up, the AI Lab had a few strategy pivots over the course of the quarter.  

The original plan was to layer AI over a legal database that the class would build for increased accuracy. But as leading AI models improved rapidly during the quarter, the team decided to focus on prompt engineering instead.  

“Ultimately it was decided that we did not see significant accuracy gains when we used AI over our database,” said Parker.  

Another pivot involved distribution. When early outreach efforts to potential partner organizations and social media influencers failed, they shifted to a marketing approach. 

McAliley drew on her PR background to pitch the tool to media outlets, landing segments on NBC News Chicago and Telemundo Chicago in December. 

Watch the course and LeaseChat featured on NBC Chicago.NBC Chicago
 

“It was really exciting and rewarding to be able to utilize my previous professional experience,” she shared. “That’s one of the things that I love about the Law School. The students here are all incredible—we all come from very diverse backgrounds and bring such different things to the table.” 

Thinking about the future of AI and the law 

McAliley said the AI Lab showed her that as powerful as AI is, it cannot entirely replace the need for an attorney. 

“It can help fill some gaps and empower people to understand the law better, but it can only take you so far,” she said. “With LeaseChat, we had to make it very clear that the tool does not provide legal advice, it can only offer legal information, and that’s an important distinction.” 

The class solidified her resolve to continue seeking opportunities to better use AI—something she said “we need to address head on and not shy away from.” 

“With LeaseChat, we had to make it very clear that the tool does not provide legal advice, it can only offer legal information, and that’s an important distinction.”

—Marley McAliey, '27

McAliley is already getting a taste of how relevant these tools are for corporations and in-house lawyers through her research projects in the Law School’s Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab, which has received various AI-related requests from clients. All of this has inspired her to consider a career path in law and technology.  

For Taboada, one of the biggest takeaways was how accessible AI tools are.  

“This technology is transformative and every single lawyer needs to have some understanding of it,” he said. “I did not realize that the barrier of entry is so low—you get good at AI just by literally using it.” 

Taboada recalled a team meeting at his small law firm in Colombia, back when the technology was just beginning to emerge.  

“We were all concerned that this would be one of these technologies that would give the larger players a bigger advantage and put us smaller fish out of business—but now I believe the opposite,” he said. “I think it has the potential to level the playing field in a way … because everyone has access to this technology.” 

Ordonez said the class opened his eyes to the big difference he can make in the legal field using AI. Building LeaseChat boosted his confidence in his tech skills and helped him see how those skills can work in a legal context—but showed him what it was like to work with people who possess different levels of familiarity with the technology. 

“Because of my background, I think I took my knowledge for granted,” he said. “But it also affirmed how important it is to have that [AI] knowledge and how much value it can add.” 

Ordonez is enrolling in UChicago’s JD/MBA program in the fall and is already taking another AI-topic class at the Law School this Winter Quarter. 

“If you become an expert at using AI tools and you are an expert in the law, you will have double the weapons to work faster and more efficiently,” said Ordonez. “The AI Lab really stressed this point for me. And on a personal note, it was so inspiring to learn from Kimball. It’s not every day you get direct access to a CEO of a tech company who is also an alum of your law school.” 

What’s next  

Since its December launch, LeaseChat has been analyzing leases every day and has helped hundreds of people. Parker is collaborating with a few cities and counties that will refer renters to the tool and is looking for a partner to host and improve the software over time.  

“There are 40 million rented properties in the United States, so the impact of a tool like this is huge,” he said. 

Parker will teach the AI Lab again this fall and will choose a new access-to-justice challenge for the new cohort to tackle. 

“My students view AI differently than I do. It's the technology they used in undergrad and in their jobs before law school. They are much more AI native,” he said. “Whatever my students got out of the class, I can confidently say that I learned more. It has changed the way I view that technology.” 

For the students, the Law School’s AI Lab proved to be more than a class—it was a call to action, showing that those willing to learn and adapt will have the biggest impact in shaping the future of law and justice. 

“This has been my favorite experience at the Law School so far,” said McAliley. “It was very nontraditional. I’m so proud of the tool we created.”  

—Adapted from an article originally published on the UChicago Law website.