Law & Artificial Intelligence

online course

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in day-to-day life. Most households and the vast majority of employees possess AI-enabled devices. Although it has proved its efficiency in several fields, AI is still making its way into the legal domain. In this Summer School, we will support you to become one of the few lawyers, legal practitioners or researchers who know how to use AI in the legal profession. We do so by providing you with answers to several questions such as: How can AI make your practice of law more efficient and effective? How to make repetitive tasks be part of the past so you can focus on knowledge building, policymaking and real consultancy?


Our approach

Your online learning journey will take place from 10-14 August 2020. This one-week online course combines videos, case studies, real-life examples, discussions, quizzes and live interactive sessions to bring the key concepts to life. The content is divided into five key topics.
During the course you will engage in 5 live webinars. The self-paced learning part consists of short videos on the topic, literature, case studies, short assignments and quizzes. Mutual learning will take place during the live webinars and via the discussion board. After completion of assignments, reading materials, videos and actively attending the live webinars, you will receive a certificate of attendance from Maastricht University.


Summer school program

10 August, live session from 13.00 till 15.00
Topic: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Towards a basic understanding

This day will focus on what AI is and what applications, examples, and impact AI has in our world.
Then the focus will shift to the legal applications of AI and legal questions on AI such as:
What are the legal applications?
What is possible and not possible in the legal domain?
More specific legal questions with regard to AI such as: who bears responsibility when an AI violates the law? Who owns the data that is produced by AI?

11 August, live session from 13.00 till 15.00
Topic: What technology is available? Examples of AI tools for legal practice.

An overview of the available technology will be provided in this day and how and where we can use it.
What is this technology really capable of and what is it not?
Examples of technology tools for legal practice, how it works and how can you benefit from it?

12 August, live session from 13.00 till 15.00
Topic: Can lawyers and judges be replaced by technology? Introduction to natural language processing and machine learning.

The technological perspective of creating a robot judge or a robot lawyer
Data science and Natural Language Processing
Language Modeling
NLP in the field of law, why is it difficult?
Making legal documents while taking into consideration NLP
What is Machine Learning? When do we call a process a learning process for machines?

13 August, live session from 13.00 till 15.00
Topic: Finding important case law with network analysis. Hands-on workshop

What is Empirical Legal Research?
What is Network Analysis? What are the applications of Network Analysis?
Law and Network Analysis
Judicial Citation Networks
Networks of Legal Articles
The future of Legal Network Analysis

14 August, live session from 13.00 till 15.00
Topic: Ethics, biases, and fundamental rights

Issues, Concerns and Ethical Considerations
AI and Ethics
AI and Bias

Target group

Are you new to Artificial Intelligence in the legal domain and your seeking to equip yourself with an overview of AI and realistic insights into possibilities of applying AI in the practice of law, then this is the right course for you!

Course aim

Learning goals

This summer school will provide you with a holistic overview of the role of AI in the practice of law and will equip you with the knowledge to differentiate between realistic and unrealistic promises of AI. At the end of this course you will be able to:

Explain the link between law and AI and understand precisely what the state of the art is.
Understand how to extract data from courts and to what extent you can benefit from this data.
Explain how computers can understand text and help ease your workload.
Carry out minor programming tasks that will help increase productivity.
Choose the technology you need among several providers in order to cut costs and boost your services.

Credits info

A certificate of Maastricht University BISS Institute will be issued after completing the summer school.

Fee info

EUR 1495: Registration fee for this online summer school Law & Artifical Intelligence is € 1495 (VAT not applicable)