About Us – Digital Legal Lab

About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab
About the digital legal lab

The Digital Legal Lab is a leading research hub that pioneers the understanding of how digital technologies interact with law and justice. Each of the four Dutch law schools participating in the research collaboration bring their own unique scientific focus and expertise.

The law sector plan

OUR RESEARCH NETWORK is funded by THE DUTCH MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SCIENCE (OCW), in consultation with nwo, THROUGH THE LAW SECTOR PLAN.

Through sector plans, the Netherlands invests in innovative scientific research and academic talent. The Law Sector Plan – as part of the broader Sectorplan Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) – incorporates several legal science themes. Our collaboration focuses on expanding and advancing one of those research themes: Digital Legal Studies.

The partner universities

Tilburg university
From Regulating Human Behavior to Regulating Data

Tilburg University is the coordinating partner of the Digital Legal Studies collaboration. The consortium is hosted by the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) at Tilburg Law School.

Led by prof. dr. Ronald Leenes, the Tilburg team focuses on the shifting paradigm of regulation in the era of big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Researchers across different disciplines aim to map, understand and – if possible – help shape the shift from human-centric regulation to data-centric regulation.

University of Amsterdam

The Digital Transformation of Decision-Making

The University of Amsterdam is a partner in the Digital Legal Studies consortium. The faculty that hosts the consortium is the Amsterdam Law School, spearheaded by the Institute for Information Law (IViR).

Led by prof. dr. Natali Helberger, prof. dr. Mireille van Eechoud and prof. dr. Joris van Hoboken, the Amsterdam team focuses on automated decision-making (ADM) systems, which are set to replace human decision makers in a range of areas, from justice, to media, commerce, health and labor. Read more on the research initiative’s own website.

Radboud university Nijmegen

Digital Conflict Resolution

At Radboud University Nijmegen, the Digital Legal Studies consortium is hosted by the university’s Faculty of Law.

Led by prof. dr. André Janssen, the Nijmegen team explores the ways in which digitalisation affects (legal) conflict resolution. Researchers with different backgrounds and perspectives jointly focus on 4 main research topics: the digitalisation of courts and legal practice, alternative digital conflict resolution, enforcement in a digital world, and the legal requirements of digital information security.

maastricht university

Developing Technology for Law

The Law & Tech Lab that hosts the consortium at Maastricht University is a unique research group with 7 computer scientists in residence.

The Maastricht team, led by prof. dr. Gijs van Dijck, focuses on creating sustainable digital-legal research infrastructures. The highly interdisciplinary team’s aim is to create a database that stores and links metadata – initially focusing on publicly available judicial and legislative datasets – that is suitable for testing and developing analytical tools (AI), in order to answer (empirical) legal research questions. Read more here.