Introduction to legal data analysis 2400-ZEWW937

1. Introductory matters.

During the first class, it is planned to present the importance of law as a social science and its inextricable connection with the disciplines of economics, psychology and sociology. This combination implies an undeniable diversity of empirical legal studies, both in terms of the issues addressed and the methods applied. In addition, the attention of the course participants will be drawn to the possible practical usage of empirical legal studies, most prominently in the broadly understood legal business.

2. Planning an empirical legal study.

Planning an empirical legal study requires certain preparatory steps. To put it in scientific language: identifying research questions, conducting literature review, formulation of research hypotheses, research design, sampling, identification of research risks and their minimisation, data collection and ethical considerations shall be covered in this part. Translating the above to business language: it is necessary to accurately identify the business problem, analyse strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of specific solutions, choose appropriate tools, test and implement them, which involves training the staff, continuous monitoring, and refining of the applied solution. All the above shall be discussed in this section.

3. Methods of empirical legal studies.

This part of the course shall contain an accessible and understandable presentation of the methods available in empirical legal research. It is planned to discuss both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Most importantly, the introduction to the latter will include a brief discussion of the idea of modelling social phenomena with classical econometric methods, to be followed by a presentation of artificial intelligence tools, more precisely machine learning algorithms. This will be complemented by a discussion of methods of natural language processing.

4. Analysis of legal data on the application of the law.

This section will present examples of empirical research on the application of the law. Firstly, state-of-the-art scientific publications on factors influencing judges' decisions will be discussed. Next, what appears to be of the highest practical importance, models aimed at predicting court decisions in specific factual situations will be reviewed. Finally, studies on the evolution of jurisprudence will be discussed.

5. Analysis of legal data on the effectiveness of the judiciary and legal offices.

This section will introduce the concepts of workload, productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of the courts. Most importantly, it is planned to present and discuss a wide range of measures on these. Next, the most important empirical studies on the assessment of the judicial system will be presented. Finally, it shall be considered how to adapt the discussed methodology to analyse the effectiveness of legal offices.

6. Analysis of legal data on the effectiveness of the law itself.

Within this part of the course, empirical research on the effectiveness of procedures and punishments are planned to be discussed. Also, it will be considered whether the law changes the behaviour of individuals, and whether it solves social problems. Furthermore, this section shall involve presentation of current research on the impact of legal changes on society, economy and environment. Technically, the discussion of the aforementioned issues, given their specificity, will primarily include an introduction to the well-established idea of economic analysis of law.

7. Analysis of legal data on justice, equality and perception of the law.

This class will focus on reporting on the current state of empirical research on inequalities in the legal system. In particular, the problem of inequality in access to justice will be considered. Also, addressing the psychological and sociological elements of empirical legal studies, the current status of research on the public perception of the law, the judiciary and individual legal regulations will be reviewed.

8. Students’ presentations.