Free, UChicago AI tool aims to help renters better understand their rights

A group of law students at the University of Chicago is using artificial intelligence to make legal help more accessible to the general public.

Ten students and their professor are part of the inaugural "AI Lab" at UChicago. This term, they focused on renters' rights.

"[There are] 40 million rented properties in the United States, and all of those renters are swimming in a very complicated area of law," said Professor Kimball Parker, the head of the AI Lab.

In Chicago, 36% of renter households earn salaries of $35,000 or less, and more than 50% of all renters are cost burdened, which means they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on rent, according to the Institute for Housing Studies.

"Our goal really is to help as many renters across the country as we can," Parker said.

The app, which launches on Thursday, is called LeaseChat. It's free to use anywhere in the country.

"So, it helps them know what their rights are and also to assert those rights and to position themselves well," Parker stated.

Users upload their lease into the app, then enter basic information like their name, email and address. LeaseChat is connected to Google Maps and will analyze, almost instantly, what's in the document and the corresponding laws in their city and state.

 "It allows you to generate legally formatted letters that a tenant can use to send their landlord," said second-year law student Adan Ordonez.

The app also pinpoints potential red flags in the contract.

"What it's doing in the background is searching for those clauses in the lease that might be problematic," Ordonez said. "It also finds general information such as, 'What's your lease amount?' 'Who signed this lease?' 'What type of property is it?'"

According to the real estate marketplace Zillow, rent in Chicago increased by 6% from 2024 to 2025 and 35% since before the pandemic.

Zillow's study also found people of color face higher rent burdens compared to white households.

Third-year law student Ravi Reddy said he's most proud of the tool's potential to improve lives.

"I think that it has the potential to level the playing field and give people who have otherwise been neglected by the legal community and legal world, give them a chance at better understanding what's going on with their leases," he said. "Also having more power at the negotiating table with any sort of rental agreements that they enter."

There are already plans in the future to continue the AI Lab at UChicago to focus on different consumer issues each term.

"The goal of the class is to try to make the biggest impact, on a really tough issue, as we can in that short amount of time," Parker said.