The Legal Design Lab is excited to co-organize a new workshop at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2025):
AI for Access to Justice (AI4A2J@ICAIL 2025)
đź“Ť Where? Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
🗓 When? June 20, 2025 (Hybrid – in-person and virtual participation available)
đź“„ Submission Deadline: May 4, 2025
📬 Acceptance Notification: May 18, 2025
Submit a paper here https://easychair.org/cfp/AI4A2JICAIL25
This workshop brings together researchers, technologists, legal aid practitioners, court leaders, policymakers, and interdisciplinary collaborators to explore the potential and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence (AI) to expand access to justice (A2J). It is part of the larger ICAIL 2025 conference, the leading international forum for AI and law research, hosted this year at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Why this workshop?
Legal systems around the world are struggling to meet people’s needs—especially in housing, immigration, debt, and family law. AI tools are increasingly being tested and deployed to address these gaps: from chatbots and form fillers to triage systems and legal document classifiers. Yet these innovations also raise serious questions around risk, bias, transparency, equity, and governance.
This workshop will serve as a venue to:
- Share and critically assess emerging work on AI-powered legal tools
- Discuss design, deployment, and evaluation of AI systems in real-world legal contexts
- Learn from cross-disciplinary perspectives to better guide responsible innovation in justice systems
What are we looking for?
We welcome submissions from a wide range of contributors—academic researchers, practitioners, students, community technologists, court innovators, and more.
We’re seeking:
- Research papers on AI and A2J
- Case studies of AI tools used in courts, legal aid, or nonprofit contexts
- Design proposals or system demos
- Critical perspectives on the ethics, policy, and governance of AI for justice
- Evaluation frameworks for AI used in legal services
- Collaborative, interdisciplinary, or community-centered work
Topics might include (but are not limited to):
- Legal intake and triage using large language models (LLMs)
- AI-guided form completion and document assembly
- Language access and plain language tools powered by AI
- Risk scoring and case prioritization
- Participatory design and co-creation with affected communities
- Bias detection and mitigation in legal AI systems
- Evaluation methods for LLMs in legal services
- Open-source or public-interest AI tools
We welcome both completed projects and works-in-progress. Our goal is to foster a diverse conversation that supports learning, experimentation, and critical thinking across the access to justice ecosystem.
Workshop Format
The workshop will be held on June 20, 2025 in hybrid format—with both in-person sessions in Chicago, Illinois and the option for virtual participation. Presenters and attendees are welcome to join from anywhere.
Workshop Committee
- Hannes Westermann, Maastricht University Faculty of Law
- JaromĂr Savelka, Carnegie Mellon University
- Marc Lauritsen, Capstone Practice Systems
- Margaret Hagan, Stanford Law School, Legal Design Lab
- Quinten Steenhuis, Suffolk University Law School
Submit Your Work
For full submission guidelines, visit the official workshop site:
https://suffolklitlab.org/ai-for-access-to-justice-at-the-international-conference-on-ai-and-law-2025-ai4a2j-icail25/
Submit your paper at EasyChair here.
Submissions are due by May 4, 2025.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 18, 2025.
We’re thrilled to help convene this conversation on the future of AI and justice—and we hope to see your ideas included. Please spread the word to others in your network who are building, researching, or questioning the role of AI in the justice system.