Li Zhang | School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh

About Me

I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh, advised by Prof. Kevin Ashley. Previously, I completed my LL.M. (Master of Laws) at Tsinghua University and my B.S. in Electrical Engineering at China University of Mining and Technology. I also spent time at the Australian National University. My biography is here.

Research Interests

My research interests include Reasoning LLMs, Trustworthy ML Systems, and AI for Law. My research explores the intersection of Computer Science and Law, where I design intelligent systems with dual purpose:

(1) For legal practitioners, I develop computational tools that leverage large foundation models to enhance legal reasoning, case analysis, and document review.

(2) For laypeople, I create interfaces that transform complex legal knowledge into intuitive and actionable insights.

News

[Nov. 2025] I will be giving an invited talk at 2025 Pittsburgh Legal AI Summit at Carnegie Mellon University.
[Oct. 2025] Our paper Thinking Longer, Not Always Smarter: Evaluating LLM Capabilities in Hierarchical Legal Reasoning is on ArXiv now.
[Oct. 2025] Our paper Do LLMs Truly Understand When a Precedent Is Overruled? is accepted by JURIX 2025.
[July. 2025] I will be giving an invited talk at ResearchTrend.
[June. 2025] Our paper Mitigating Manipulation and Enhancing Persuasion: A Reflective Multi-Agent Approach for Legal Argument Generation is accepted by LCIC@ICAIL 2025. I will be presenting the papers at the conference.
[May. 2025] Our paper Measuring Faithfulness and Abstention: An Automated Pipeline for Evaluating LLM-Generated 3-ply Case-Based Legal Arguments is accepted by ASAIL@ICAIL 2025.
[Mar. 2025] Really excited about our newly-accepted CS&Law 2025 paper: Generating Case-Based Legal Arguments with LLMs.