Legal Data Science and Informatics

What it is about

You will learn how methods of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence are applied to legal questions, for example in analysis and search in legal documents, prediction of case outcomes and formal representations of legal knowledge. In the end you will be able to assess how ML and NLP techniques affect legal data, explain formal representation and argumentation models, and apply simple technical approaches to concrete, bounded problems.

What you will be able to do

• Knowledge about knowledge representation and argumentation formals in AI&Law
• Application of statistical procedures, Machine Learning- and NLP-techniques to legal data
• Critical evaluation of experimental works and systems in Legal Data Science
• Planning, implementation and evaluation of research works in Legal Data Science/Informatics
• Application of formal representation methods and computer-supported argument models in bounded scenarios
• Analysis and comparative assessment of technical works with respect to datasets, assumptions, models and results

What the module consists of

• LectureConveying concepts using examples and research literature
• Discussion sessionsDeepening and critical engagement with read publications
• Practical workshops / programming exercisesApplication and practice of techniques (e.g. in Jupyter notebooks)

Teaching method

• Problem-based lecturesTo make concepts understandable by concrete cases
• Programming workshopsTo enable practical application and experimentation with techniques
• Discussions of research publicationsTo foster critical reading and in-depth engagement; preparatory reading is essential