Stanford law school’s AI Initiative is rapidly expanding its work across research, education, legal practice, and public discussion. Co-directed by Nate Persily, JD ’98, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law, and Professor Julian Nyarko, with Irene Liu serving as executive director, the initiative acts as a hub for the school’s AI-focused centers, labs, and clinics. It also integrates AI across the Stanford Law curriculum, helping to prepare students to engage critically with the technologies reshaping the legal profession.

One of the initiative’s newest platforms is AI Sidebar, a podcast hosted by Liu that explores how AI is reshaping law—and how the law is shaping the technology’s future.

Early episodes have examined how agentic AI is changing the role of product counsel, the emergence of legal engineers, and what law schools must do to prepare students for an AI-enabled profession.

The initiative’s lunchtime speaker series is also bringing leading practitioners and scholars to campus to examine some of the most consequential legal questions surrounding AI. Programs have explored how in-house legal teams are navigating governance, risk, and strategy at the frontiers of AI development, as well as how generative AI is challenging established ideas about copyright. SL