University of Michigan Law School Receives Grants to Expand AI-Assisted Immigration Legal Resources
The Immigrant Justice Lab at the University of Michigan has received three grants totaling $40,500 to expand its legal research tools and public resources for immigrants navigating the U.S. immigration system without lawyers.
The lab, led by Clinical Assistant Professor Jessica Lefort, trains law students and undergraduates to produce practical legal materials-self-help guides, legal templates, country conditions reports, and asylum briefs-for use by attorneys, advocates, and unrepresented individuals. Since its founding, the lab has engaged more than 250 students and supported hundreds of clients.
AI Tool for Asylum Case Research
The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts awarded the lab $30,000 through its New Initiatives/New Instruction Grant, with potential funding for two additional years. LSA Technology Services will cover the cost of the lab's AI platform.
The grant funds the Next Gen Immigrant Justice Lab, a three-year initiative led by Lefort, Amy Sankaran, and LSA professor Melissa Borja. The centerpiece is an AI-assisted tool designed to generate country conditions reports-detailed documents required in asylum cases to establish that applicants cannot safely return home.
These reports currently require 15 to 20 hours of skilled labor per case, creating a bottleneck for under-resourced legal services organizations. The lab's proof-of-concept system synthesizes authoritative sources and produces citation-rich draft reports, aiming to reduce initial research and drafting time by approximately 80 percent while preserving attorney oversight.
Students in the lab's fall and winter courses will develop, test, and critically evaluate the AI tool, assessing outputs for accuracy, legal sufficiency, and ethical implications. This approach connects AI for Legal work directly to real-world practice.
Public Resource Repository and Website Redesign
The lab received $9,000 through the University's Life-Changing Education Grants program to redesign its public-facing website into a centralized repository of immigration resources. The redesigned site will emphasize language access and accommodate different ways people engage with digital content.
The grant also funds a national working group that will convene organizations producing similar public-facing immigration resources. The goal is to build a shared, centralized repository to reduce duplication across the field.
Research on AI's Impact on Student Work and Learning
Sankaran received a $1,500 stipend through the Investigating GenAI Teaching and Learning Mini-Grants program to study whether AI-assisted drafting improves student work, writing ability, or efficiency in a live-client legal setting.
The study uses a crossover design: students will complete two sections of country conditions research, with one group using the lab's AI drafting tool and the other working without it. Student reflections and focus groups will assess whether AI strengthens or weakens research and writing skills, informing both the lab's future practice and broader understanding of generative AI in legal education.
Lefort said the grants arrive at a critical moment. "The need for publicly accessible legal resources has never been more urgent," she said. "These grants allow us to think carefully about how technology can expand what we offer to community partners while teaching students what AI can and cannot do."
The lab's work connects to broader questions about AI Research methods and how to apply AI responsibly in knowledge-intensive fields.
Your membership also unlocks:
