Osgoode leads the way on artificial intelligence in law

Lawyers and law students are used to hearing horror stories when it comes to artificial intelligence in law.

But cautionary tales about plagiarism, academic integrity and hallucinated case law only tell part of the story, according to Sean Rehaag, Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

“So much messaging around artificial intelligence in law is about the risks,” he says. “We should take those risks seriously, but there are also exciting opportunities to explore and I’d like students to have some experience critically engaging with the tools, and learning more about how they work, what they’re good for, what their limitations are, and how the answers to those questions are likely to change over time.”

“I want students not to be afraid to experiment with AI,” Rehaag adds.

He and his faculty colleagues have certainly shown no fear of innovation, putting Osgoode at the forefront of developments in the rapidly evolving space of artificial intelligence in law.

Rehaag teaches Legal Information Technology: Data Analysis & Coding for Access to Justice, an experiential learning course for JD students in which they are taught the basics of coding in Python, with the assistance of AI coding agents.

Students on the recently-updated three-credit course use their newly developed skills to engage with AI platforms, before pursuing a project with the potential to advance access to justice.

“Those projects range from chatbots to help unrepresented parties fill out legal forms, to analysis of patterns in outcomes in administrative tribunal decisions, to matching lawyers to organizations for potential strategic interventions in test case litigation,” Rehaag says.

Away from the classroom, Rehaag has integrated AI into his own research techniques, using AI to write code and undertake some of the analysis in his studies of refugee adjudication at scale. Meanwhile, some of his recent publications involve collaborative projects aimed at measuring and improving the quality of AI in legal fields, as well as building Canadian legal datasets that AI tools can engage with.

But it’s not just future lawyers who turn to Osgoode for leadership in artificial intelligence in the law. Elizabeth Kirley, teaches courses on Osgoode’s part-time Professional LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law, where she has witnessed up close the increasing curiosity and eagerness of practising lawyers to engage with AI tools.

Like many other Osgoode LLMs, the privacy and cybersecurity program is designed for working professionals with or without legal backgrounds and Kirley said most of her students could be divided into two groups: lawyers with a connection to criminal law and cybersecurity professionals without a law degree.

“I find it very rewarding when you take two completely different types of skilled learners and open them up to how the other works,” Kirley says.

While the lawyers in the group were initially more skeptical and less experienced regarding AI tools than their cybersecurity expert counterparts, Kirley says that the gap between the two factions has narrowed or even disappeared in just the last year.

“Artificial intelligence in law is here to stay and it’s moving at a galloping pace. They are using it in their practices and they want to get up to speed,” Kirley says. “They are looking to such programs as their Osgoode LLM degree to provide more practice-related guidance and hands-on encouragement. Ideally, they see AI tools as reshaping law practice, not to compete with them as counsel, but to make legal services less intrusive, less expensive, and more focused on providing preventative advice.”  

Osgoode Professional Development, which administers the school’s Professional LLM programs, has bolstered its pioneering status in AI through its shorter-form continuing legal education offerings, including the Annual Forum on Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Law.

Now in its fourth year, the program has already established itself as a fixture of Canada’s tech law calendar, attracting a variety of industry and legal experts to discuss hot topics and share practical insights around artificial intelligence in law. This year’s forum will run online across two full days of sessions on Oct. 27 and 28, with an online replay to follow in late November for those unable to make the live version.

In addition, OsgoodePD has several other upcoming AI programs of varying length and focus, from the half-day Human-In-The-Loop: Critical Thinking for the AI Era and one-day course Public Sector AI Compliance: Laws, Risks and Governance, as well as deeper dives like the Osgoode Certificate in AI Governance, a multi-module program that runs over five days in early 2027.

“AI is infiltrating all areas of a lawyer’s work, across a wide range of different practice areas,” says Elise Parr, the Program Lawyer for several OsgoodePD courses. “We feel a responsibility to ensure that lawyers and other professionals have access to the latest legal knowledge and skills training, so they can really understand what are the impacts and how they can better advise clients and organizations in these areas.”

In keeping with Osgoode’s reputation as a pioneer in practical learning, the programs often feature exercises, discussions and workshops based around real-world scenarios and interactive case studies.

“We’re always trying to provide training that they can use immediately, whether it’s with respect to the use of generative AI in their day-to-day work, designing a new internal AI policy, or advising clients on particular issues,” Parr says.

As AI technology continues to evolve, along with the ways professionals use it, she says OsgoodePD is well poised to develop new programs and adapt its existing offerings.

“It’s all so new and changing so quickly, that knowledge gaps are going to appear,” Parr says. “New uses will create new risks and concerns that need to be addressed. Our goal will still be providing people with a better understanding of how AI works, what it’s capable of, its limitations and how to manage risk.”

As the technology matures, Rehaag says he wants to see an evolution in his dialogue with students around artificial intelligence in law.

“I’m looking forward to the conversation moving on to encouraging students to think critically about AI, to consider the broader socio-economic contexts within which AI tools are developed and implemented, and to think about how, as future lawyers, they can help push the development of AI tools in directions that advance access to justice and other important rights. I think those are the kinds of questions that Osgoode excels at tackling,” he says. “We have a long history of thinking critically about law in its broader social, economic and political contexts. And we have a long history of helping students advance social justice through our clinical programs. I’m excited about what we’ll be able to do together when we grapple with AI through those lenses.”

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