EAGER: Piloting a multi-campus training program in algorithmic processes, data analytics and mobile computing for sociolegal scholars

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Changes in technology are revolutionizing the study and practice of law. A generation ago, law and social science scholars outlined a new paradigm for legal scholarship, focusing on social, economic and political variables in the interpretation and execution of the law. Today, algorithmic processes, data analytics and ubiquitous social and mobile computing pose new opportunities for the study of the effects of law, rules, and social norms. These new opportunities invite the use of new methodological techniques in law and social science research. Yet few law and social science scholars are trained to understand these new computational processes. This is a pilot of a collaborative, multidisciplinary, cross-campus network brought together to plan and train the next generation of law and social science scholars in algorithmic processes, data analytics and the opportunities presented by ubiquitous social and mobile computing. It is for the development of a faculty board, new curriculum, and new training activities to be centered primarily at a Technology, Law and Society Summer Institute. The goal is to develop the updated training necessary to ensure that the next generation of socio-legal scholars are equipped to utilize new methodological techniques and new sites of inquiry. Just as the consideration of "law-in-action" shifted the paradigm for legal research by expanding it beyond the exegesis of law as written and into the domain of what judges, lawyers and citizens actually do with law and how they understand it in practice, the interface between law and computer-based and other computational systems offers the opportunity for a new paradigm shift in socio-legal studies. The proposed series of trainings, workshops and a summer institute will equip law and social science scholars to develop methods for the study of these new legal objects and relationships. During the academic year, participants will test methods and formats for cross-training and collaboration. The broader impacts include training new researchers and helping existing law and social science scholars to re-tool; collaborating with the technology and policy communities to bring law and social science research to bear on their activities; and fostering cross-disciplinary, cross-campus collaborations.