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Has the robot judge finally arrived?
Past, present and future of AI & Law

5 March 2027, University Museum Utrecht

Farewell Symposium for Henry Prakken, sponsored by the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University.

Registration is open now.

Symposium Topic and Target Audience

The field of AI & law studies computational models of legal reasoning, decision making and research, and their practical application to support the judiciary, legal professionals and justice-seeking citizens. AI & law has existed as a research field since the 1970s. In the first decades symbolic methods were dominant but nowadays machine-learning based methods are leading. As in many fields, the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022 was revolutionary. Up to then practical applications of AI & law were infrequent, the most successful ones being rule-based systems in administrative law. By contrast, nowadays almost every law firm uses generative AI and courts and administrative bodies are increasingly interested in applying it too.

The aim of this symposium is to discuss what these developments mean for AI & law as a research field. What are the main research directions? Have symbolic methods become outdated or do they still have a place in future developments? Has generative AI made the prospect for fully automated legal decision realistic or should the main focus still be on AI support for humans? Four internationally renown researchers from AI & law will speak about these themes from their own perspectives.

The primary target audience of the symposium is academic researchers interested in AI & law research. Legal professionals and legal-tech developers are also welcome but the primary focus will be on (pure and applied) research.

Preliminary programme

The workshop will run from 10.00-17.00, with a lunch from 12.30-13.30 and drinks after 17.00. The four speakers are:

  • Katie Atkinson, School of Computer Science and Informatics, University of Liverpool, UK.
  • Floris Bex, Department of Information and Computing Sciences and School of Law, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
  • Matthias Grabmair, Legal Tech Group, Technical University of Munich, Germany
  • Giovanni Sartor, CIRSFID, Faculty of Law, University of Bologna, Italy.

Venue

Bovenzaal Universiteitsmuseum (University Museum), Lange Nieuwstraat 106, Utrecht.

Registration

Registration is free but the number of participants is limited by the size of the room. To register, complete the online registration form by 12 February 2027.

Contact

For practical questions about, for instance, the registration or the lunch, please send an email to ics.events@uu.nl. For content-related questions the contact person is Henry Prakken h.prakken@uu.nl.