Scope

Technology and Law welcomes articles on new and original research, visions and applications in the area of technology in normative domains. Law and the legal field is an obvious example of such a domain, but so are the worlds of banking, insurance, qualification and certification, etc. The key is that in these domains we deal with intentional agents that either conform or not to some set of norms – that were created to achieve some goals and support some set of values – and where this behavior leads to consequences after some assessment process.

Digitalization is has a great impact on law, the legal profession and similar branches, and it takes many forms. It changes existing processes in practice; some tasks that traditionally were performed by (para-)legals are taken over by automated systems. New technologies lead to better access to and analysis of sources of law and relevant legal data. The development and use of new technologies leads to new or different legal and ethical questions.

On the other hand, technology has theoretical consequences. It is now possible to formulate computational theories of legal reasoning and test out our ideas. Data science, network analysis and natural language processing allow for types of legal research that were unavailable in the past. The availability of more and more legal data and the structured access of sources of law enable scholars to pose new questions and suggest analyses that were not feasible before.

This journal intends to publish and discuss these major impacts in both theoretical and practical work. The scope includes, but is not limited, to:
• Computational models of normative or legal reasoning and argumentation
• Application and evaluation of general algorithms and data models in a legal context
• Application and evaluation of specific algorithms and data models for a legal context
• Evaluation and critical assessment of (large scale) automation in public administrations, or other (para-) legal organisations
• R&D of tools and computational methods for legal practitioners
• Position papers and meta-studies in the area of technology in normative domains
• Empirical legal studies using information technology

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