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Research Fellowship in AI and the Law (liftlab) - Stanford Law School

School of Law, Stanford, California, United States

Academic

Post Date Jun 24, 2025

Requisition # 106721

NOTE: This position has been deemed critical/has specific funding, has been approved by the Law School for posting, and is exempt from the hiring freeze.

Overview:

This full-time research fellowship provides opportunities to assist the Legal Innovation through Frontier Technology Lab (liftlab), jointly led by Professor Julian Nyarko and Dr. Megan Ma, in its research. The Fellow will support the execution and administration of research activities on AI and other legal technological developments; and make recommendations on project development and implementation. The fellowship is aimed at recent graduates who are considering entering a graduate degree program (Ph.D. / JD) in the near future. The first two fellows have gone on to pursue PhDs at MIT and Harvard, respectively, as well as a JD at Stanford.

Examples of Current Projects

+ Improving contract drafting practices by identifying litigation-triggering language

+ Large-scale evaluation of AI tutors for law

+ Development of methodology and best practices to employ LLMs for hypothesis testingin the social sciences

+ New methods to promote the interpretability of embedding vectors

+ Unsupervised identification of novel legal ideas and concepts

+ Data attribution at scale

+ Auditing and mitigation of bias in LLMs via pruning

Responsibilities:

+ Designing methods to validate data to ensure high quality output

+ Identifying new sources of data and methods to improve data collection, analysis and reporting

+ Conceptualization and implementation of statistical models

+ Collecting, managing, and structuring quantitative datasets

+ Report writing and manuscript preparation

The full-time position is fixed-term for one year, with the intention to renew for a second year, subject to approval. It is expected that the fellow will be physically present in and working from Stanford Law School. As full-time Stanford University employees, fellows will receive a competitive salary and option to elect a benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, access to campus athletic and academic facilities, paid time off, professional development funds, and the capacity to audit Stanford courses and attend on-campus lectures and seminars free of charge.

The expected base pay salary for this position is $69,680. Stanford University has provided a pay range representing its good faith estimate of what the university reasonably expects to pay for the position. The pay offered to the selected candidate will be determined based on factors including (but not limited to) the qualifications of the selected candidate, budget availability, and internal equity.

Qualifications

Experience and knowledge of the following is **required** :

+ A Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field

+ Experience with statistics

+ Programming experience

+ Ability to work under deadlines with general guidance

Experience and knowledge of the following is **highly desirable** :

+ A Bachelor’s degree in computer science with a background in NLP, a Bachelor’s degree in (computational) linguistics or in symbolic systems

+ A strong, demonstrated interest to conduct academic research in a relevant field

+ Interest in legal research

+ Interest in causal inference and social science

+ Experience with machine learning / deep learning

+ Substantial experience with Python

+ Substantial experience with R

The job duties listed are typical examples of work performed by positions in this job classification and are not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, tasks, and responsibilities. Specific duties and responsibilities may vary depending on department or program needs without changing the general nature and scope of the job or level of responsibility. Employees may also perform other duties as assigned.

Consistent with its obligations under the law, the University will provide reasonable accommodation to any employee with a disability who requires accommodation to perform the essential functions of the job.

Stanford is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Stanford Law School seeks to hire the best talent and to promote a safe and secure environment for all members of the university community and its property. To that end, new staff hires must successfully pass a background check prior to starting work at Stanford University.

Additional Information

+ **Schedule: Full-time**

+ **Job Code: 1384**

+ **Employee Status: Fixed-Term**

+ **Grade: H99**

+ **Requisition ID: 106721**

+ **Work Arrangement : Hybrid Eligible, On Site**