UPDATED schedule due to COVID-19

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Conveners & Editors
David Restrepo Amariles, HEC Paris
Michalis Vazirgiannis, Ecole Polytechnique (LIX)
Pedro Rubim Borges Fortes, UFRJ
Pablo Marcello Baquero, HEC Paris

Keynotes
David Freeman Engstrom, Stanford University
Michalis Vazirgiannis, Ecole Polytechnique (LIX)
Olivier Sibony, HEC Paris
Cesar A. Hidalgo, Chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute (ANITI)
John P.A. Ioannidis, Stanford University (TBC)


HEC Paris, Ecole Polytechnique, the American Law and Society Review, the American Law and Society Association, DATA IA Institut are issuing a call for original research papers to be presented at the Symposium Algorithmic Law and Society. The papers will appear in special issues to be published in the Law and Society Review, Computer Law and Security Review, Artificial Intelligence and Law, International Journal of Law in Context and the European Journal of Risk Regulation.

The symposium will be held at HEC Paris (France) on Thursday and Friday, December 2-3, 2021. The symposium will be organized as a combination of panel discussion, invited talks, and selected submitted works. For non-speakers, registration details will be made available early November.

The organizers welcome applications of technical, conceptual and empirical papers in relation to any field of law (e.g. tax, corporate, compliance, constitutional, administrative, dispute resolution, etc.) analyzing the use of algorithms, machine learning, automation, and other artificial intelligence tools and methods in the legal domain and discussing their impact on society. It covers a broad range of issues such as predictive justice, legal professions, algorithmic decision systems, LegalTech, Online Dispute Resolution aided by AI (ODRAI) , data mining, AI for democracy, data sharing, accountability of algorithms, civil and criminal liability, computation law, and privacy, among others.

TOPICS
Social trust in AI-driven legal systems
B2G data sharing and data philanthropy
AI, democracy, development and the rule of law
LegalTech for law firms and corporations
Legal data mining
Algorithmic decisions systems
Automation in law
Machine learning applied to legal tasks
Visualization and legal design
Responsible AI in law
Accountability and ethics of AI
Computational law
Liability of autonomous machines
Technology standards
Blockchain and smart contracts
AI methods as empirical research methods
Discrimination-related implications of algorithms and AI
Bias and stereotypical thinking in algorithms and AI
Discriminatory decision-making and machine learning
Digital justice, electronic arbitration and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR)
Algorithmic law and the transformation of legal education
Algorithmic law and the transformation of the legal profession

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

February 1, 2020: Deadline for Submission of abstracts
Authors must submit their abstracts to the following email address: algolaw@hec.fr, and cc. co-organizers at restrepo-amariles@hec.fr and pfortes@stanfordalumni.org. Only abstracts ranging from 500 to 1000 words will be accepted. They should clearly identify the type of paper (technical, conceptual, empirical), the main contribution to the symposium theme, and the key methodological considerations.

February 15, 2020: Notification of acceptance
Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by February 15, 2020. They will be invited to submit an intermediary paper by June 1, 2020.

August 31, 2020: Submission of intermediary draft
Submission of an intermediary draft of at least 5000 words. This draft paper should outline the key research findings. Draft papers will be reviewed by the scientific board of the conference as a preliminary assessment for the peer-review evaluation of the final submission.

October 15, 2020: Feedback and invitation to submit full draft
Authors will be provided with intermediary feedback by the scientific board. We expect to confirm the participation of all the authors to the symposium. Nonetheless, should the scientific board consider a paper is not ready for public discussion or does not meet the academic standards of the Law and Society Review, the author(s) will receive a notification of withdrawal from the program.

December 15, 2020: Submission of full draft
Authors must submit the final paper to the organizers to algolaw@hec.fr on December 15 , 2020 the latest, following the submission guidelines of the Law and Society Review.
See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/15405893/homepage/forauthors.html

January 15, 2021: Submission to Journal for Peer Review and Confirmation of Invitation to the Symposium
Given the updated schedule, papers will be first assessed by the editors of the special issue, David Restrepo Amariles and Pedro Rubim Borges Fortes, and will then be subject to peer-review following the strict rules of the Law and Society Review. A confirmation of invitation to present in the symposium will be sent to authors of selected papers.

2 & 3 December 2021: Two-day Symposium at HEC Paris


TRAVEL FUNDING

The organizers will reserve and pay for hotel accommodations for attending authors and discussants for two nights (10-11 of September). The organizers may offer financial support for travel expenses on individual basis and upon request of the participant. Please let us know if you require financial support for your transportation at the moment of notification of acceptance of your abstract. Participants are expected to attend and participate in the full duration of the symposium.

More about Algorithmic Law and Society
Our daily lives are currently impacted by decisions made by algorithms, which are ubiquitous. Mathematical formulas establish instructions that shape the outcomes of markets, state, and society. Because orders embedded in computer programs command how reality ought to be, algorithms are normative. Eventually, algorithmic decisions systems implementing legal rules, mathematical formulas and computer code are triggering the emergence of hybrid norms and arguably of an algorithmic law.

The initial prospects of using big data and algorithms for legal design and regulation were positive, because of its potential for improvement of the quality of law and decisions making by using quantitative empirical methods, measuring the impact of the law through metrics, and enforcing the law automatically. In this context, the idea of a SMART - acronym for Scientific, Mathematical, Algorithmic, Risk, and Technology driven - Law emerged as a perspective for analysis of new regulatory techniques already applied for taxation, fintech, and banking, among other fields. The potential of an optimally designed regulation led to the expectation that big data could provide us with hyper-nudges and alternative reality models for governance by algorithms.

However, critical analysis of select algorithmic systems reveals that they may also be opaque, discriminatory, fraudulent, and unfair. Particular case studies show, for instance, that computer programs are used to cut social security benefits from the vulnerable poor, to facilitate anticompetitive practices and collusion that harms consumers in digital markets, and to provide justification for incarceration of individuals in the criminal justice systems. Artificial intelligence methods, and machine learning in particular, bring another layer of complexity to this brave new world of algorithmic law, especially for criminal and civil liability of conduct performed by computer devices, drones and autonomous machines. In this setting, demands for more transparency, the right for an explanation, and for algorithmic auditing are becoming more frequently among academics, policymakers and the public in general. Hence, the analytical and empirical review of algorithms and the assessment of their impact on contemporary societies are essential for understanding the future of the law jobs, the role of the justice system in solving disputes, the transformations of the legal profession, and most importantly, the means to uphold democracy and the rule of law in this new setting.

Why a Symposium on Algorithmic Law and Society?
This symposium on 'Algorithmic Law and Society' seeks to bring a socio-legal, interdisciplinary and critical scrutiny to legal decision systems relying on mathematical rationality, computer programs, and automation. Our digital experience is monitored, controlled, and systematized in a way that news, adds, prices, and offers are tailored according to the selected data about our previous actions and future expected patterns of behavior. These designed digital ecosystems are a significant part of our virtual existence. Likewise, courts are already experimenting with digital justice, by moving from Alternative Dispute Resolution to AI-driven Online Dispute Resolution. In terms of case management, computer software may identify similar claims, repetitive appeals, and analogous cases for purposes of unifying these files and providing a single coherent decision applicable for all of them. Moreover, algorithms are already trained to substitute repetitive. Finally, the theme is relevant, because it is at the forefront of the law, lawyering, and legal education - Academic institutes for the study of law, technology, and society proliferate; courses on digital justice are extremely popular at law schools nowadays; governments, tribunals, and law firms are investing in IT; and a growing academic literature on 'algorithmic law and society' is being published with the clear concrete significance and importance of this theme.

For any questions regarding the submission process, please contact

David Restrepo Amariles, Associate Professor of Data Law & AI, HEC Paris. Member of DATA IA. restrepo-amariles@hec.fr

Pedro Rubim Borges Fortes, Visiting Professor of Law at the Doctorate of the National Law School at UFRJ, pfortes@stanfordalumni.org

Pablo Baquero, Assistant Professor, HEC Paris & Fellow at Hi! Paris, baquero@hec.fr


Scientific Board

Karim Benyeklef, Professor of Law, Director of Cyberjustice, Université de Montreal
Carlos Bolonha, Dean and Professor of Law, National Law School, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Anupam Chander, Professor of Law, Georgetown University
David Erdos, Senior Lecturer in Law, Deputy Director of Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL), University of Cambridge
David Freeman Engstrom, Professor of Law, Associate Dean, Stanford University
Benoit Frydman, Professor of Law, Perelman Centre, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Fabien Gélinas, Professor of Law, Sir William C. Macdonald Chair, McGill University
Sabine Gless, Professor of Law, Universität Basel
Mireille Hildebrandt, Professor of Law and Technology, Co-Director Law, Science and Technology, Vrij Universiteit Brussel.
Guilherme Magalhães Martins, Professor of Law at the National Law School, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and Director of IBERC.
Rebecca L. Sandefur, Professor of Sociology, Arizona State University, Chief editor of the Law and Society Review, and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation.
Susan Sterett, Professor and Director of Public Policy, UMBC.
Michalis Vazirgiannis, Professor of Data Science, Ecole Polytechnique

This event is organized in collaboration with

This symposium is supported by a grant of the French National Research Agency (ANR), “Investissements d’Avenir” (LabEx Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047)"