AI Lawcraft 2026: Students build legal AI solutions in one day at BI

On Thursday 22 October, we hosted AI Lawcraft 2026 together with Handelshøyskolen BI at BI Startup Village in Oslo. It was a free, one day legal AI hackathon for law and technology students, and around nine multicultural teams from different schools joined us to find out what legal AI can do in practice.

There was no set case. Each team chose a problem it cared about, built a working solution with Saga and pitched it to the jury in the evening. No coding background was needed, only legal judgement, curiosity and a willingness to test ideas.

From blank page to final pitch

The day opened with a welcome from Professor Monica Viken and Jørn Haanæs from BI, followed by keynotes from Naomi Bugre, Legal Engineer, and Daniel Sunde-Hansen, Partner AI Strategy at SkyeTec. After a short introduction to Saga, the teams formed over lunch and spent the afternoon building, testing and refining their ideas.

After dinner, Camilla Gjersem (Senior Associate, Føyen), Professor Bjarte Askeland (BI) and Dan Sørensen (CTO & Partner, Saga) joined a panel on what AI means for legal practice. Then the teams had a final push before the presentations started.

The jury and the winners

In the evening, the teams presented their work to a jury of Professor Bjarte Askeland (BI), Associate Professor Sjur Swensen Ellingsæter (BI), Peter Lenda (Partner, Arntzen Grette), Marie Fjeld Egilsdottir (Head of AI and Digital Adoption, Haavind) and Knut-Magnar Aanestad (Co-founder & CPO, Saga).

The winning team was Waldemar Solbraa Heilemann, Oliver Mosand and Thomas Frednes from BI, together with Luca Juul from Universitetet i Oslo (UiO). They built Path to Legal Aid, a solution that explores how AI can help people find and access free legal aid. Congratulations to the team!

The day ended with the winner announcement and a social gathering at BI Kroa.

Looking ahead

What stood out most was not the technology but the people using it. Students from law and tech, many of them new to building with AI, sat side by side, asked sharp questions and turned an idea into something that works in a single day. That is exactly the kind of practical, hands on learning we believe the legal profession needs as AI becomes part of everyday legal work.

A big thank you to Risham Kaur Kamboj and Tina Chen Sandboe for making the event possible, and to BI, our speakers, the panel, the jury and every student who spent the day building with us.

We look forward to the next AI Lawcraft.

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