Caseway
Rights in Your Pocket | Student Capstone Project
A team of Master of Data Science students at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus worked to help Canadians in Ontario and British Columbia find clearer, better-sourced information about employment law. Through a partnership with Vancouver-based artificial intelligence company Caseway, the students started building a tool called Know Your Rights that supports people dealing with job-related legal issues in those two provinces.
The project was part of the Master of Data Science program’s DATA 599 capstone course, an eight-week term focused on projects using real-world data. The student team included Yin-Wen (Ella) Tsai, Yue Wang and Rachel Kamphuis. They were guided by Dr. Irene Vrbik and Dr. Scott Fazackerley, along with mentorship from Caseway CEO Al Vigier and Caseway project supervisor Shariq Siddiqui.
The UBC Okanagan team built a more focused system. Instead of covering every type of legal question, it concentrated on employment termination in two provinces. This allowed the team to create something accurate and practical rather than broad and incomplete.
The tool guides users through a series of simple yes-or-no questions to better understand their situation. It then surfaces information backed by Canadian legal sources, with clear citations so users can see where the information comes from. It is designed to provide legal information, not legal advice and to flag when someone may need urgent help from a lawyer versus when they can take time to explore their options.
“Many public legal AI tools today sound legitimate but do not always reference where their information comes from,” says Caseway CEO Al Vigier. He believes this project is testing a better approach, one built on clear sources, a narrow focus and accountability.
For the students, working with real data instead of a practice dataset has been a major benefit. “One of the strengths of the Master of Data Science capstone is that it allows students to work with external partners on authentic problems. These collaborations help students build on the knowledge and skills they have developed throughout the program while gaining valuable experience working with clients in a professional setting,” says Dr. Irene Vrbik of UBC Okanagan.
Yin-Wen (Ella) Tsai says the focus was deliberate. “We narrowed the scope to Canadian employment law in two provinces so we could deliver something complete rather than something broad and shallow. Working on a live system that real users will eventually rely on changes how you approach evaluation, accuracy targets and edge cases.”
About Caseway
Caseway develops tools that help people make sense of complex legal and regulatory information. The company works with several universities, including UBC, Simon Fraser University and the University of the Fraser Valley.