by Dr. Megan Ma, Associate Director, Pierre-Loic Doulcet, and Jay Mandal, CodeX Fellow, Stanford CodeX

In an era dominated by generative AI and rapid technological advancement, hackathons have emerged as powerful incubators for interdisciplinary innovation, particularly in the legal sector. These time-bound collaborative events break down traditional silos, bringing together legal professionals, technologists, designers, and other subject matter experts to tackle persistent and complex legal challenges. In Spring 2023, we hosted our first LLM x Law hackathon at Stanford Law School with 200 participants. Since then, we have seen increasing demand and sustained growth that led to four iterations of the event. Our latest Fall 2024 event saw nearly 400 total participants and 80 teams of lawyers, builders, and AI enthusiasts co-creating well developed projects. We enumerate in this blog post why we think hackathons are important and may play a key role in innovation for our legal community.

Simply put: the beauty of hackathons lies in their ability to create an ecosystem where diverse expertise and experiences converge. The cross-pollination of ideas often yields unexpected breakthroughs that would not otherwise have emerged in conventional work environments.

For the legal industry specifically, hackathons serve as accelerators of transformation (both structural and technological). Participants experiment with AI tools, other automation systems, and novel interfaces, creating prototypes that could revolutionize legal service provision. The pressure-cooker environment of a hackathon, combined with its collaborative spirit, encourages rapid iteration and fail-fast learning – essential skills in today’s tech-driven landscape.

Moreover, hackathons foster an inclusive culture where law students can contribute alongside senior partners. Early-stage founders can collaborate with established legal tech companies and technology firms. This democratization of innovation helps build a more dynamic and forward-thinking legal community.

The impact extends beyond the event itself. Relationships formed during hackathons often evolve into lasting professional networks. Successful prototypes may also develop into full-fledged legal tech solutions. As the legal industry grapples with AI integration, hackathons provide a safe space to experiment, learn, and build the future of legal services.

The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics (CodeX) has transformed the traditional hackathon model into a cornerstone of legal technology education and innovation. CodeX’s adaptation of the hackathon format stands out for its emphasis on sustained impact rather than pure rapid prototyping. We involve our deep and diverse network of mentors, judges, and partners to share wisdom and engage winners of our Hackathons at the event and beyond. Moreover, our FutureLaw hackathons are structured to include pre-hackathon bootcamps. Our CodeX team created an educational session for Stanford Law students – alongside Business School and Computer Science students – to learn about specific legal challenges, regulatory frameworks, and existing technological solutions. This educational component of our programs ensures that teams approach problems with a deeper understanding of the legal context.

At our most recent iteration of the Stanford LLM x Law Hackathon in Fall 2024, we had two winners that are now deeply embedded in developing novel legal solutions:

Best First Build: Comply AI—a prototype that is designed to streamline legal compliance workflows for enterprises. Recognizing delays in reviewing marketing materials against diverse regional regulations, four engineers created a system that leverages AI to parse and analyze various types of content, including videos and digital communications. Comply AI employs reasoning agents to assess compliance with complex, region-specific laws, reducing the review cycle from weeks to hours while maintaining high compliance standards.

Best VC: The Hammurabi team developed an early iteration of an AI system that helps insurance companies automatically reason about a variety of contracts. The system is designed to process a contract’s logic, allowing users to determine what happens under the terms of a contract in a given scenario. Unlike today’s advanced language models, this system iteratively reflects on the scenario and contract logic, asking clarifying questions to avoid unfounded assumptions and improve accuracy before reaching a final conclusion.

Structured hackathons serve as both hyper-engaging educational events and catalysts for meaningful technological advancement in law. Looking to the future, Stanford CodeX has since transplanted the LLM x Law Hackathon to an event at Cambridge University last spring. In a few short days, we will be headed to Paris, co-hosting a Paris LLM x Law Hackathon at Station F, the world’s largest startup campus.

We hope that the LLM x Law Hackathon is a template and becomes a key building block to positively transform legal culture – one that is more adaptable and collaborative. We hope that our hackathons could serve as an opportunity for building technology in law isn’t just about adopting new tools, but also fosters a mindset that embraces experimentation and empiricism, values diverse perspectives, and importantly, reimagines legal and justice delivery.