Artificial intelligence is transforming medicine, finance and software engineering. Increasingly, it's changing the legal profession too.
At the University of Miami School of Law, the Miami Law and AI Lab (MiLA) is exploring exactly what that transformation looks like, combining legal research, AI policy and practical software development to prepare the next generation of lawyers for an AI-driven profession.
Founded in 2024, the lab has grown into an interdisciplinary program bringing together around 40 students from law, computer science, engineering and business to research how AI is changing legal systems while building tools that legal professionals can use.
Researching How AI Is Changing the Courts
One of the lab's most notable research projects examined whether AI is improving access to justice.
Researchers analyzed more than three million pro se court filings between 2008 and 2025, finding that AI-assisted legal filings increased sharply during late 2025. However, they also found that dismissal rates climbed as more people relied on AI to prepare legal claims without professional guidance.
The research suggests that while AI lowers barriers to accessing the legal system, it can also encourage users to become overly confident in weak legal arguments.
Looking Beyond Today's AI Regulation
The lab is also examining how governments should regulate increasingly capable AI systems.
One area of research questions current regulatory approaches that rely on computing power (FLOPs) as a measure of AI risk.
Researchers argue that networks of smaller AI agents may collectively outperform larger frontier models while remaining below existing regulatory thresholds, suggesting today's approaches may become less effective as agentic AI evolves.
Building AI Tools for Lawyers
Alongside academic research, MiLA is developing practical AI applications for legal professionals.
Among them is AEGIS (Attorney's Encryption Guard for Information Security), which encrypts and redacts confidential information before prompts are sent to AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude, helping lawyers protect sensitive client information.
The lab has also created Moot Court XR, a virtual reality platform that allows law students to practice courtroom arguments with AI-generated questioning and feedback at minimal cost.
Another project, Footnoted, aims to automate Bluebook legal citation formatting, reducing one of the legal profession's most time-consuming administrative tasks.
AI as a Legal Assistant, Not a Replacement
While embracing AI, the lab also emphasizes responsible use.
Researchers encourage students to use AI as a collaborative assistant rather than allowing it to replace independent thinking, legal reasoning and professional judgment.
That balance between innovation and critical thinking has become one of the lab's central educational goals as AI becomes increasingly embedded in legal practice.
What This Means for Miami
The Miami Law and AI Lab highlights another way South Florida's AI ecosystem is expanding beyond startups and venture capital. Alongside advances in healthcare, climate science and robotics, the University of Miami is helping shape how artificial intelligence will influence legal systems, public policy and professional education.
As AI adoption accelerates across regulated industries, Miami is positioning itself not only as a place where AI companies are built, but also where the legal, ethical and policy frameworks surrounding artificial intelligence are being developed.
