W
hen Oliver Roberts arrived at WashU Law last January to teach a new winter-term course called “AI in the Law,” he expected curiosity — but not a crowd. Instead, the classroom filled with more than 75 students, alumni and faculty eager to understand how artificial intelligence was already reshaping the legal profession.
“After the second class, I spoke with Dean Stefanie Lindquist,” says Roberts, an adjunct professor at WashU Law and now co-director of the AI Collaborative, along with Ryan Durrie, lecturer in law and associate director of policy for the Cordell Institute. “She told me AI was one of her top priorities, and we immediately started brainstorming how to make it something bigger. Within weeks, we were sketching out the framework for what became the WashU AI Collaborative, and now, WashU Law’s position as a global leader in AI education.”
What began as a one-week experiment quickly evolved into a major university initiative. The Washington University AI Collaborative at WashU Law, launched in spring 2025, is now the school’s hub for innovation, education and research on artificial intelligence. It connects faculty, students, alumni and practitioners to the emerging intersections of law, technology and ethics — and it’s rapidly positioning the university as a national leader in the field.
Building an ‘AI arm’ for the law school
Roberts had a clear goal from the beginning: build an “AI arm” for WashU Law — one that would not only teach students about AI’s impact on law, but also engage attorneys, judges and policymakers in understanding its real-world applications.
In March, Roberts and his company, Wickard AI, hosted an intensive two-day program open to students and alumni. Within weeks, the collaborative began offering a continuing legal education (CLE) series on pressing policy topics, including federal preemption of state AI laws, the environmental impact of data centers and the legal implications of generative AI.
“We’ve done several CLEs,” Roberts says. “They’re all about helping lawyers, students and even laypeople understand what’s going on in the AI policy landscape,” Roberts says. “It’s about demystifying this technology and helping people see both its promise and its risks.”
The CLEs, Roberts says, are “all about helping lawyers, students and even laypeople understand what’s going on in the AI policy landscape. It’s about demystifying this technology and helping people see both its promise and its risks.”
Another flagship event, Legal AI Demo Day, is a series of events that brings together 10-15 legal technology companies at a time to showcase AI-powered tools in rapid-fire demonstrations. Each session draws more than a thousand RSVPs, with hundreds of live participants tuning in online to explore how AI products are already transforming legal work. These events have featured leading legal tech companies like Harvey, Legora, Laurel, Spellbook, Trellis, DraftWise and LegalOn Technologies. Attendees have spanned top law firms and corporations, including Jones Day, Walmart, EY, Capital One, Spotify, Sullivan & Cromwell, Orrick, Reed Smith, Jackson Lewis, Mayer Brown, Norton Rose, Greenberg Traurig, Paul Weiss, WilmerHale, Troutman, O’Melveny, Alston & Bird, Holland & Knight, DLA Piper and more.
“It’s our way of bringing the legal tech world together. We want lawyers to see what’s possible — how these systems are changing efficiency, access to justice and even the structure of the legal profession itself.”
“It’s our way of bringing the legal tech world together. We want lawyers to see what’s possible — how these systems are changing efficiency, access to justice and even the structure of the legal profession itself.”
Oliver Roberts
A transformative moment
Roberts has taught AI and law at nearly a dozen universities and developed the first required law school AI course in the nation at Case Western Reserve University. Through Wickard AI, he has partnered with WashU to implement the collaborative’s programs and extend its reach internationally.
He believes the changes AI brings are as sweeping as any in the history of law. “There’s never been a technology that lets you type a prompt like, ‘Write me a motion,’ and get a full, structured draft in seconds,” he says. “Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s game-changing in terms of speed and efficiency. It’s replacing a lot of the work first-year associates used to do. I think we’ll eventually see a shift to software-as-a-service models, where law firms license AI tools that handle the first drafts of legal work.”
But that doesn’t mean young lawyers are going to become obsolete. That shift, Roberts says, underscores the importance of education. “We’re teaching students that AI can be a powerful force for good,” he says. “It can improve lawyer efficiency, deliver better results for clients and give our graduates a competitive edge. But we’re equally focused on the risks — including bias, misuse and overreliance. Understanding both sides is essential.”
And that focus on teaching AI to students has become a focal point at WashU Law. In October, Roberts and Lindquist penned a column for Bloomberg Law in which they wrote, “AI can no longer be dismissed as a passing fad. It’s reshaping lawyers’ obligations, standards of diligence and competence, and the processes by which law is practiced.”
A new kind of legal education
For Lindquist, the Nickerson Dean of the School of Law and professor of law, the AI Collaborative reinforces the university’s commitment to leading in areas that redefine the profession.
“Everybody wants to understand the impact AI will have, but most people don’t understand AI at all,” she says. “That gives us a real opportunity to be a source of education and insight, not just for students, but for faculty, staff and practicing lawyers.”
“Everybody wants to understand the impact AI will have, but most people don’t understand AI at all,” she says. “That gives us a real opportunity to be a source of education and insight, not just for students, but for faculty, staff and practicing lawyers.”
Stefanie Lindquist
The law school, she notes, is embracing AI in its own operations and research. “We opened Oliver’s courses to faculty and staff, too,” Lindquist says. “We want everyone to understand these tools because they also have the potential to improve how we work as an institution — how we conduct research, write, synthesize documents and even analyze data.”
Lindquist sees AI’s reach extending well beyond law. “AI can help researchers summarize complex material, create literature reviews and conduct quantitative analysis,” she says. “It’s not just a productivity tool — it’s reshaping the way we think about knowledge itself.”
But Lindquist also sees profound challenges ahead.
“Artificial intelligence has the capacity to change human life on this planet as we know it,” she says. “It raises enormous ethical and governance questions. At WashU Law, we want to be the place where people think seriously about how to manage this technology ethically and intelligently — so that human beings, and the rule of law, aren’t left behind.”
She compares the stakes to those of climate change: a global force advancing faster than policy can adapt. “If we don’t pay attention now,” Lindquist says, “it will get ahead of us. That’s why we’re here — to get ahead of it.”
Leading beyond the classroom
The collaborative’s reach already extends to the judiciary. Roberts recently led an AI ethics seminar for judges at the Northern District of Mississippi’s judicial conference and led a panel on AI and the future of the judiciary at the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, where representatives from Westlaw and LexisNexis demonstrated AI prototypes that generate bench memos. In January, he will be leading court-wide AI ethics training for the D.C. court system.
This semester, Roberts teamed up with Judge Joshua Deahl, from the D.C. Court of Appeals, to teach a seminar titled “AI & the Judiciary,” in which students directly engaged with the opportunities and risks for judges using AI. Across all these initiatives, the goal is the same: equip lawyers, judges and policymakers with the understanding needed to use AI responsibly.
Across these initiatives, the goal is the same: equip lawyers, judges and policymakers with the understanding needed to use AI responsibly. “At WashU, we’re not just reacting to AI — we’re shaping how the legal profession responds to it,” Roberts says. “We’re helping build the frameworks that will make AI not just more efficient, but more just.”
“At WashU, we’re not just reacting to AI — we’re shaping how the legal profession responds to it,” Roberts says. “We’re helping build the frameworks that will make AI not just more efficient, but more just.”
As AI continues to blur the boundaries between human and machine intelligence, WashU’s AI Collaborative stands at the frontier, grounded in the belief that technology should serve people, not replace them.
By combining rigorous legal scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration and forward-looking leadership, WashU Law is ensuring that its graduates — and the legal system itself — are ready for the era ahead.
