Center for Legal Technology and Data Science

Established in 2020, the Bucerius Center for Legal Technology and Data Science focuses on applying quantitative methods to legal scholarship. 

The center focuses on the legal market and its regulation, the development and application of technology in law, and quantitative research on law and society. Its goal is to help actors in the legal system in handling legal complexity and managing legal risk.

The center's contributions to Bucerius Law School's curriculum include the flagship Summer Program Legal Technology and Operations, the online format Legal Tech Essentials, LL.B. classes on technology and data science that can be combined to form a Technology Certificate within Bucerius Law School's LL.B. degree, a Legal Technology and Operations specialization within Bucerius Law School's Master of Law and Business program, and the Legal Technology Lecture Series.

Figure from "Measuring Law Over Time: A Network Analytical Framework with an Application to Statutes and Regulations in the United States and Germany"

On the research side, the center works on the HILANO project, a consortium effort to build a federated, human-in-the-loop approach to anonymization of judicial and medical documents. The research project is funded through a grant by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

A Legal Data Science Research Group at the center investigates the law using quantitative methods through the lens of Complexity Science—viewing the law as a complex adaptive system. 

Additionally, the center looks at the digitization of the legal market and regularly publishes reports such as "How Legal Technology will Change the Business of Law" (2016, with The Boston Consulting Group and the Center on the Legal Profession at Bucerius Law School) and "Legal Operations: Getting More from In-House Legal Departments and their Outside Counsel" (2018, also with BCG and the CLP).