Join the Lab

Work with the AI Teaching Lab — open roles, how we work, and how to apply.

The Penn Carey Law AI Teaching Lab hires research assistants and project leads who want to work at the front edge of AI and the law. We research how AI is changing legal education and practice, build the tools that put those findings to work, and teach law students, faculty, judges, and the profession how to use AI well.

What you’d work on

The Lab runs eight workstreams across the three pillars — Research, Build, and Teach. Recent and current work includes:

  • Assessment tools — AI exam-taking and grading studies, and tools that help faculty build essay and multiple-choice exams.
  • Teaching tools — a virtual-TA Slackbot, course-material pipelines, a casebook builder, and AI-driven classroom simulations.
  • Judicial testbed — use-case research and chambers-facing tools with a working group of federal and Delaware chambers.
  • Newsletter & toolkit — a monthly AI newsletter for the PCL community and a public, open toolkit of guides and resources.
  • Training — AI-fluency training for faculty and researchers, across Penn and beyond.

How we work

  • Open source by default. Public GitHub, public website, no-login access where we can manage it. What you build is openly attributed and goes on your CV.
  • Markdown-first. Most things start as a doc. We write in Markdown, ship on GitHub, and generate polished deliverables from there.
  • Self-directed. Summer is short. We hand you a real problem and a partner, and trust you to ship.
  • Tools real people use. We build for actual workflows — students, faculty, chambers, firms — not for demos.

Who we look for

Across every role:

  • Legal-domain interest. You’re curious about law, legal education, or the profession, not just AI hype.
  • AI literacy. You’ve used the major models, have opinions about what they’re good and bad at, and ideally have built something with one.
  • Self-direction and clear writing. You can take an outcome and run, and explain your thinking on the page.
  • Something to show. A GitHub link, a writing sample, a prior project — anything we can look at.

Some roles welcome non-law backgrounds where the technical or pedagogical fit is strong.

Roles and logistics

  • Paid or for credit — $25/hr, or up to two ungraded credits per semester in place of pay. Summer work is credited in the fall.
  • Time — roughly 10–15 hours/week over the summer; flexible during the academic year.
  • Location and cadence — fully remote for the summer. Almost all our work happens on Slack, with weekly Zoom check-ins and project updates.
  • Term — Summer 2026, with the possibility of extension into the academic year for most roles.
  • Eligibility — JD students, recent JD grads, and graduate students with relevant skills.

See the full role list and current openings.

How to apply

Email pwagner@law.upenn.edu with the subject line AI Teaching Lab Application — , and include:

  1. A short statement of interest — which role or roles you want, and what you’d want to build first.
  2. Your CV or résumé.
  3. A code or writing sample — something that shows technical work, editorial judgment, or both.

Interested in more than one role? Apply once, list your first choice, and mention the others in your statement. We read applications as they come in.