Modelling Law through AI? Methodological Insights on Computational Law

Computational law is an automated legal reasoning approach that targets legal operationalization through computational methods at the interface of law and computer science. As a research topic, it addresses the question of how to model ‘law’, and the degree that law and legal decision-making may be subject to AI. Methods range from formalizations through logic to recent machine learning approaches. While current trends focus on tasks like judgment prediction through large language models, the general idea has been lingering for some time. What are the proposed and applied methods? What is the state-of-the-art? And given advances in AI, should we use certain methods or do they change the nature and concepts of law and what we consider essential to its validity and effects? These are just some of the important and fascinating issues that Max Planck Law researchers can expect to be discussed at Professor Frederike Zufall’s upcoming LRM presentation on the uses and misuses of computational law, and its increasingly significant role in legal scholarship.

Professor Dr Frederike Zufall, T.T.-Professor, Chair of Public Law and Computer Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Max Planck Alumna 2020–23.