The National Law Review and Wickard are proud to announce the Top 50 Legal Innovators in Academia for 2026, a national recognition honoring the educators, administrators, researchers, and academic leaders who are shaping the future of legal education. The recognition highlights individuals who are developing innovative programs, conducting impactful research, modernizing curricula, launching new centers and initiatives, and preparing students to meet the evolving demands of the legal profession.

Honorees were selected through an independent Selection Committee process, described more fully in the Selection Methodology below. The Committee included: Dean Neel Sukhatme, University of Michigan Law School Dean; Stefanie Lindquist, WashU Law; Judge Joshua Deahl, D.C. Court of Appeals; Bridget McCormack, President & CEO, American Arbitration Association; Robert Ambrogi, Founder and Journalist, LawSites; Sara Miro, Managing Attorney-Director, KM Solutions, Sullivan & Cromwell; Evan Shenkman, Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer, Fisher Phillips; Pablo Arredondo, Co-Founder, CaseText, and Innovation Fellow at the Legal Information Institute; Dean Darby Dickerson, President & Dean, Southwestern Law School; Phil Saunders, CEO, Relativity; Andrew Woolf, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, Cozen O’Connor; and Stephanie Goutos, Chief AI Officer, Littler.

As part of NLR’s and Wickard’s “Commitment to Integrity,” there was no fee to submit a nomination, and selection was not tied to sponsorship, advertising, or any other paid or non-paid relationship with NLR or Wickard. Neither NLR nor Wickard held voting or selection rights in the Selection Committee’s decision-making process. Wickard personnel, NLR personnel, and members of the Selection Committee were ineligible for recognition. Committee members also recused themselves from reviewing or voting on any nominee with whom they had a conflict of interest.

The resulting 2026 class reflects a broad range of contributions to the continued evolution of legal education, from curricular and institutional innovation to scholarship, technology, and new models of professional training. The 50 honorees are presented below in alphabetical order.

2026 Honorees

Presented alphabetically by last name.

Ifeoma Ajunwa

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and Founding Director of the AI and the Future of Work Program, Emory University School of Law

As the Asa Griggs Candler Professor, Associate Dean for Projects and Partnerships, and founding director of Emory Law’s AI and the Future of Work Program, she leads the law school’s first initiative devoted to AI training, experiential student learning, and interdisciplinary research on the use of AI across workplaces, businesses, and the professions. Ajunwa’s scholarship has supplied a foundational framework for understanding algorithmic hiring, automated worker evaluation, workplace surveillance, privacy, discrimination, and the increasing quantification of employees.

Benjamin Alarie

Osler Chair in Business Law, University of Toronto / Co-founder & CEO, Blue J

Alarie is the Osler Chair in Business Law at the University of Toronto and co-founder and CEO of Blue J. His work connects legal scholarship with artificial intelligence and predictive legal analytics, including technology designed to support legal research and analysis.

John P. Anderson

Dean and Henry Vaughan Watkins and Selby Watkins McRae Professor of Law, Mississippi College School of Law

Under his deanship, Mississippi College School of Law became the first law school in Mississippi and the Southeast to require all first-year students to complete a certification in AI and the law. Beginning in spring 2026, the certification provides foundational instruction, hands-on experience with AI-powered legal tools, formal assessment, and education concerning the ethical, regulatory, and policy issues arising from AI’s use in legal practice.

Jonathan Askin

Professor of Clinical Law, Brooklyn Law School

Jonathan Askin has spent more than two decades building institutions, communities, and educational models that redefine how law engages with technology, entrepreneurship, public policy, and access to justice. As the founder of the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy (BLIP) Clinic at Brooklyn Law School, Askin created one of the nation’s first technology-focused legal clinics and one of the most influential models for experiential legal education.

Kathleen (Katie) Brown

Associate Dean for Information Resources, Charleston School of Law

Katie Brown’s work focuses on how technology is taught, measured, and applied in legal education. Her recent scholarship examines who is responsible for building technology competence in ABA-accredited law schools and how those expectations translate into curriculum and training.

Ryan Calo

Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professor, University of Washington School of Law

As a founding co-director of the UW Tech Policy Lab and co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public, he has created durable platforms for research and student engagement on artificial intelligence, robotics, privacy, cybersecurity, and digital governance. Calo’s scholarship has provided foundational legal frameworks for understanding how emerging technologies affect consumers, institutions, and civil society.

Seth J. Chandler

Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P. Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center

Chandler has converted decades of computational legal scholarship into three concrete contributions to legal education. His “augmented seminar” lets students use AI to develop topics and test arguments while holding them fully responsible for sourcing, verifying, and defending every claim, a model that produced a published 289-page student anthology. His course Large Language Models for Lawyers moves instruction from demonstration to practice, and his free platform, legaled.ai, shares his course designs and experiments with faculty nationwide.

Adam S. Chilton

Dean, Howard G. Krane Professor of Law, and Walter Mander Research Scholar, University of Chicago Law School

Since becoming dean of the University of Chicago Law School in July 2025, Chilton has overseen a rapidly expanding AI strategy that includes required AI modules for first-year students, integration of AI tools into clinical education, guidance for responsible AI use in legal research and writing, and expanded upper-level coursework on generative AI and law. Under his leadership, the Law School also launched an AI Lab in which students do more than learn to use existing tools.

Kirsten K. Davis

Professor of Law, Stetson University College of Law

Kirsten Davis was among the first legal writing scholars to treat generative AI as a paradigm shift rather than a classroom-integrity problem. Her essay “A New Parlor Is Open” argued that legal communication faculty must research how AI reshapes the discipline’s core questions rather than simply policing its use. She translated that scholarship into one of the earliest AI-specific legal writing courses, founded a national peer-learning group that now includes more than 550 faculty members, and served as her university’s Provost’s Fellow for Generative AI, earning the Legal Writing Institute’s 2026 Mary Lawrence Innovation Award.

April Dawson

Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law and Faculty Director of the Howard Law AI Initiative.

Since August 2026, April Dawson has been a Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law and Faculty Director of the Howard Law AI Initiative. Previously, Dawson served as the inaugural Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation and Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University School of Law, where she led the NCCU Technology Law & Policy Center (TLPC).

 

Read full list https://natlawreview.com/article/2026-top-50-legal-innovators-academia