A University of Miami School of Law lab is building a Bluebook citation tool that completes legal citations automatically. A data science master’s student leads the team and is co-writing a paper on its performance. #LegalTech #UniversityOfMiami #AIResearch #MiamiTech
A Bluebook citation tool is taking shape at the University of Miami School of Law. A data science student is in charge.
The University of Miami’s news office profiled the project and its student lead, Arian Djahed.
What Does the Bluebook Citation Tool Do?
The project sits inside the School of Law’s Law & AI Lab. It centers on a web-based tool that automatically generates citations compliant with the Bluebook.
The Bluebook is the citation system commonly used in legal writing. Its rules are dense, covering typeface, spacing and abbreviations.
The university describes the rules as widely considered difficult and tedious. Law students and legal professionals often call learning them a frustrating rite of passage.
The web application takes a legal document with incomplete citations and processes it. It returns the document with completed Bluebook-compliant citations, preserving the formatting.
“It basically automates that process,” Djahed said.
Why Do Lawyers Want It?
Or Cohen-Sasson, director of the Miami Law & AI Lab, framed the problem from experience.
“Anyone who has been through law school knows the Bluebook: hundreds of pages of rules on abbreviations, typeface and spacing that students, journal editors and lawyers apply by hand for countless hours,” he said.
“Automating that process frees them to focus on what actually matters: the substantive legal work.”
Who Is Leading the Project?
Djahed is a project manager on the Bluebook project. He is finishing his final semester in the University of Miami’s Master of Science in Data Science program. It sits in the College of Arts and Sciences.
A few years ago, he had never written a line of code. He was born and raised in Miami, and his mother and older brother are University alumni.
He started in physics as an undergraduate. An introductory computer science class changed his path, and he moved toward data science and machine learning.
He joined the Bluebook project in May 2025. He worked under its previous project manager, then took over when that student graduated.
He oversees two other student developers. He assigns responsibilities, tracks issues and helps keep the team moving toward its goals.
Cohen-Sasson praised the arrangement. “He came in with no background in law, learned the logic of legal citation from the ground up and now leads a team building a tool that lawyers will actually use.”
What Has the Project Taught Him About AI?
One of the most valuable lessons, Djahed said, was learning to work with large language models in a programming environment. He had to build the technology into software.
“I had never done that before,” he said. “I think that was a very valuable experience.”
The project also needed legal knowledge he did not have. He had to learn the Bluebook from scratch.
He sees the skills as versatile. Programming, data science and machine learning can be applied to numerous fields, including law and medicine, he said.
He is now drafting a research paper with Cohen-Sasson about the tool. The paper will evaluate its performance, which means refining the application and collecting data on how well it works.
The program gave him access to “higher-level, more specialized classes that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken,” he said.
His master’s program does not require a thesis. He said that let him focus on career-related skills and avoid being pigeonholed into academia.
What Else Are South Florida Schools Building?
Universities across South Florida are tying AI to practical work. MAIN covered engineers teaching AI to say “I’m not sure.” at the University of Miami.
MAIN also covered a 10-month program with 15 industry partners at Miami Dade College, which targets entry into AI jobs.
The Bluebook project adds a law school angle. Djahed plans to pursue machine learning work after graduating, and the project has strengthened that interest.
The takeaway is simple. Student teams at the University of Miami are building AI tools that professionals can use.
Sources:
- University of Miami News: From first lines of code to leading an AI project (Alexandra Yessios)
- MAIN: UM engineers teach AI to say “I’m not sure.”
- MAIN: Miami Dade College builds a 10-month path into AI jobs