Employment Opportunity:

Osgoode JD RA (Data Collection)

Employment Opportunity: Osgoode JD Research Assistant — Data Collection (Refugee Law Lab & Access to Algorithmic Justice)

The Refugee Law Lab and Access to Algorithmic Justice are looking for an Osgoode Hall Law School JD student to gather and verify data from court decisions and other legal documents in support of natural language processing and legal analytics projects.

One part-time position is open to Osgoode JD students with an interest in refugee law, access to justice, and the role of new technologies in law.

The Refugee Law Lab (RLL), based at York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies and Osgoode Hall Law School, is devoted to research and advocacy related to new legal technologies and their impact on refugees, other displaced communities, and people on the move. We develop datasets and legal analytics that enhance transparency in refugee law processes, critique the use of artificial intelligence and other technologies in the migration field, and build open-source legal technology to advance the rights and interests of marginalized communities.

Access to Algorithmic Justice (A2AJ) is a research project co-hosted by York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law. We research and advocate for a fairer, more accessible justice system as technology reshapes the law, and we are building legal datasets, AI benchmarks, and open-source legal tech tools to improve access to justice for marginalized and low-income communities in Canada.

To assist with RLL & A2AJ projects, the successful candidate will:

  • Participate in brainstorming and planning meetings
  • Gather and organize data from court decisions and other legal documents
  • Categorize legal materials, such as identifying and classifying types of refugee claims
  • Verify information extracted from court decisions by AI tools, and correct errors
  • Build human-coded datasets that serve as ground truth for training and evaluating AI processes
  • Help create problems and test sets for benchmarking legal AI tools

Qualifications & Competencies:

  • Currently enrolled JD student at Osgoode Hall Law School
  • Strong attention to detail and accuracy in reading and coding legal documents
  • Strong legal reading and analytical skills
  • Interest in refugee law, access to justice, and law and technology
  • A background in either a technical field (computer science, data science, software engineering) or immigration / refugee law is preferred
  • French, Spanish, or Arabic language skills are an asset
  • Experience with, or interest in, data coding, legal data, or empirical legal research is an asset
  • Lived experience with forced migration or being a member of an equity-seeking group is an asset
  • Open to students in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year of the JD program

Place of work: Remote

Salary: $24.50/hr

Time Commitment: Approximately 5–7 hours per week throughout the Fall 2026 and Winter 2027 Terms. Hours are flexible, and we can accommodate periods of non-availability.

Eligibility: Must be eligible for Research @ York (RAY) positions.

What You’ll Gain:

  • Develop skills in legal data coding, dataset construction, and AI benchmarking
  • Learn how human-coded data supports and evaluates cutting-edge NLP and AI tools applied to legal materials
  • Gain domain knowledge in refugee law, access to justice, and legal technology in Canada
  • Experience in team-based scholarly research
  • Integration into the RLL & A2AJ research communities, with opportunities for learning and networking alongside computer scientists, software engineers, law students, and a law professor

Application Deadline: September 13, 2026, 11:59 PM

Position Start Date: October 1, 2026

Application Method: Apply online

Supervising Faculty: Professor Sean Rehaag, RLL Director & A2AJ Co-Director