Innovation Fellowship Grants

Overview

The A2AJ Innovation Fellowship Grants Program is a competitive funding opportunity for graduate students in any relevant discipline and JD students looking to build open-source tools that advance access to justice.

This program provides funding for qualifying technology projects that expand, enhance and utilize A2AJ's open-source datasets to advance access to justice.

Meet the 2025–26 Innovation Fellows and learn about their projects building citation networks, AI benchmarks, legal podcasting tools, and tribunal datasets. See the 2025–26 fellows →

Funding & Key Dates

Key Dates

Application deadline: May 15, 2026
Info session: April 24, 2026
Funding decisions: June 2026
Fellowship duration: 10 months

Fellowship Details

Amount: $10,000 per project (inclusive of 4% vacation pay, subject to statutory deductions)
Available fellowships: 5

Funding Disbursement

Successful fellows will have funding disbursed in three tranches:

33%

At project kickoff

33%

After substantial progress (e.g., working proof of concept). No later than 6 months after kickoff.

34%

On delivery of a complete project. No later than 12 months after kickoff.

Note that failure to meet project milestones may result in funding being withheld.

Eligibility

Individual Applicant

Current graduate student at any Canadian university, OR current JD student enrolled in any Canadian law faculty.
Eligible to work in Canada.

Team Applicants

Teams of up to 4 members may apply.
The team's principal applicant must meet the individual applicant criteria.
All team members must be current students at Canadian universities and eligible to work in Canada.
Partnerships between law students and students from computer science, data science, or related technical fields are encouraged.

Project Scope

A2J: Project proposals must focus on applications, analysis of A2AJ datasets and/or dataset creation that will enhance access to justice.
Open Source: Project deliverables (application, dataset, etc.) must be developed as open-source tools and any publications must be made available open access.
Feasibility: The project deliverable should be technically feasible within a 10-month timeline.
Data: A2AJ provides free, programmatic access to Canadian court decisions, laws and regulations. Documents are available in English and French where translations exist, with full text search capabilities and comprehensive metadata.
Projects that rely on external data must demonstrate that the data exists and is accessible under licence terms that permit your proposed use (or that you will be able to obtain the necessary permissions to do so).
User Engagement: Projects that propose user-facing tools should demonstrate engagement with intended users at the application phase - through a support letter, co-applicant, requirements gathering, or some other method to show the work is informed by actual user needs.

Example Projects

Below are examples of the types of projects that are well-suited for the fellowship. For examples of successful fellowship applications, see the 2025–26 fellows.

Expand A2AJ Datasets

Expanding A2AJ pipelines to include provincial legislation and regulations, provincial tribunals, or provincial superior courts

Building a dataset of all materials submitted in Supreme Court of Canada cases

Creating a programmatically accessible dataset of all publicly disclosed collective agreements in Canada

Collecting and parsing all open access law journal articles from Canadian law journals

Gathering open access public legal education documents

Enhance A2AJ Datasets

Building a front-end search interface for lawyers and researchers to explore A2AJ data, including integration with generative AI tools

Building and optimizing semantic search systems for case law that can be added to the A2AJ API/MCP

Creating automated processes to parse legal citations and create citation networks for A2AJ datasets

Building automated summarization tools for A2AJ pipelines to make legal documents easier to search and work with

Testing different approaches for delivering long legislation for use by LLMs through the A2AJ API/MCP

Use A2AJ Datasets

Building a tool for a legal clinic to extract insights from A2AJ datasets

Creating an automated process to use generative AI to create a weekly podcast about the latest cases from a court or area of law obtained via the A2AJ API

Establishing an AI benchmarking tool to measure how accurately LLMs can analyze cases or legislation obtained via the A2AJ MCP

Using bilingual documents in the A2AJ dataset to create an automated translation system fine-tuned for Canadian case law

Writing a law journal article using A2AJ datasets — for example, an article that measures quality of writing over time for an administrative tribunal

Evaluation Criteria

Pillar	What We Look For
Access to justice impact (35%)	How significantly will this project advance access to justice? This includes direct service to communities, supporting institutions that serve marginalized populations, systemic improvements to legal processes, or increased understanding of an access to justice issue. The proposed tool addresses important access to justice challenges; demonstrates clear understanding of how the project will ultimately benefit those facing legal barriers; shows potential for substantial, measurable impact.
Technical innovation & A2AJ integration (25%)	How effectively does the project leverage, enhance, or expand A2AJ datasets and infrastructure? The project significantly expands A2AJ capabilities or datasets; and/or proposes novel technical solutions to existing legal information, design or technical problems.
Feasibility & capability (25%)	Can the fellow(s) successfully deliver the proposed project within timeline and budget? The applicant(s) have directly relevant technical skills and/or experience; project has a realistic timeline with clear milestones.
Equity, diversity & inclusion (15%)	How does the project reflect the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion? The applicants are members of, or have demonstrated productive experience engaging with, equity-deserving groups or groups underrepresented in legal or technological fields. The project reflects commitments to the principles of co-creation and "nothing about us without us."

Apply Now

For each applicant, you will need to provide:

Institutional email from a university in which you are currently enrolled
CV
Current academic transcript
Confirmation of eligibility in Canada
Agreement that the tool, dataset and/or publication funded by the fellowship will be open-source

For the project proposal:

Proposal (maximum 2,500 words):
- Project statement explaining the challenge you will address, the community(s) that may benefit, and the project's connection to A2AJ's mandate. Where applicable, explain how the project reflects the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion.
- Technical feasibility statement explaining your team's technical skills and how you will accomplish your goals. Projects that rely on external data must demonstrate that the data exists and is accessible under licence terms that permit your proposed use (or that you will be able to obtain the necessary permissions to do so).
- Project plan & timeline with specific milestones
Support/reference letter (optional):
- Projects that propose user-facing tools should demonstrate engagement with intended users at the application phase — through a support letter, co-applicant, requirements gathering, or some other method to show the work is informed by actual user needs.

All fields are mandatory; only complete applications will be considered.

Ready to Apply?

Applications for the 2026–27 cohort are due May 15, 2026.

Submit Your Application →