Is it reasonable to get the university's legal team to advise on an open source licensing issue that affects software developed for research I am developing some open source software for use in research.
I intend to publish a paper about it.
(It is marginally novel, and there is a venue I have in mind that accepts such.)

One piece of existing code I would like to derive from to make my tool,
is released under a problematic crayon license.
It basically boils down to the code is either public domain, GPL, or all rights reserved. (and I can't determine which, and nor can Open Source stack exchange).

So it seems like maybe interpretting the license is a job for an actual lawyer.
I know my university has a team of them on retainer.
(and I know they do process some documents for students. I had an undergrad unit that required working with a business and we were instructed to forward any NDAs to the lecturer who would get them checked by the university lawyers.)

Making this code is not the primary goal in my research, but it is a stepping stone, and it does furfill some of the stated objectives of one of my supervisor's grants that has been funding me. but it is not a primary part of either.

I can't directly request anything from legal myself, but I could get my supervisor to do so.
But I don't know if it is a waste of everybody's time.
Your work is important for your supervisors grant.
Your supervisor is employed at said university and thus his grant is important to the university.
The universities legal team deals with legal issues that are important for the university.

Sounds rather clear to me. Furthermore, asking your supervisor or even sending a short "can you help me with such an issue" mail to the legal team takes only a few minutes of their time.
Of course you should clarify who to ask first and not start off with 10 pages of legal "bla" in your first email.

PS: On the other hand, you might get yourself and the legal team in a lot of trouble if you publish something, under the universities name and with your supervisor employed there, without taking care of such issues first.