1. What is
Computational Legal Studies?
Professor Daniel Martin Katz
Illinois Tech - Chicago Kent College of Law
@computationaldanielmartinkatz.com computationallegalstudies.com

2. What is Computational
Legal Studies?

4. What is Computational
Legal Studies?

5. Computational
Legal Studies
is

6. Sociophysics

7. Natural Language Processing

8. Machine Learning

9. Network Science

10. Statistical Methods

11. Out of Equilibrium Models

12. Non Linearity

13. Scaling

14. Diffusion

15. Social Epidemiology

16. Information Theory

17. New Kind of Science

18. Computational Game Theory

19. Web Scrapping

20. Information Visualization

21. What is Computational
Legal Studies?

22. Computational
Legal Studies
Offers

23. A Set of Tools

24. that allow us
to perhaps
better understand

25. ‘Law’ in a
modern society

27. Taxonomy of Approaches

28. Data
Analysis
Formal
Models
Computational
Legal Studies

29. Data
Analysis
Formal
Models
Computational
Legal Studies

30. Data
Analysis

31. This is the Era of “Big Data”
Decreasing Data Storage Costs
Increasing Computing Power
Fundamentally Altering the Scope of Scientific Inquiry

32. Highlighting the Data Deluge
2008 2009 2010

33. The Case for a
Computational Approach
Legal Systems Output large
amounts of Information
Need Methods that Scale
to the Size and Scope of
this Body of Information

34. Data Analysis
statistical
models
and
methods
network
analytic
methods
text
as
data
other
related
approaches

35. What is Computational
Legal Studies?

36. Computational
Legal Studies
is

37. quantitative
legal prediction

38. do i have a case?

39. how do lawyers
generate this
assessment?

40. can it be automated?

41. Mental Models
vs
Aggregated Data

42. Weather
Prediction

43. Tide
Prediction

44. vs.

45. lots of factors matter

46. Inputs / Data Quality

47. Time Scales Matter

48. inherent system
variability matters

49. ‘complexity’ matters

50. Some Potential Inputs

51. what is the relevant
information contained
therein?

52. text, citations, votes, etc.

53. other metadata

54. what form might the
outputs take?

55. standard client memo
+
statistical portrait of 10,000
‘similar’ cases

56. the caveat

57. your mileage may vary

58. but a statistical portrait

59. would be useful

60. to gut check
a mental model

61. other
big
implications ...

62. the market for
legal services

65. the market for
legal education

68. ‘thinking like a lawyer’?

69. in the age of big data ...

70. What is Computational
Legal Studies?
Data
Analysis
Formal
Models

71. Formal
Models

72. Formal Models
computational
game
theory
network
models
Agent
Based
Modeling

73. Why Generate
Formal Models?

74. Formal Models
v.
Data

75. The Evaluation of
Counterfactuals

76. The Evaluation
of Alternative
‘States of the world’

77. Cannot not be
Exclusively
Data Driven

78. A Few Examples ...

79. Theoretical Models and
Computational Simulations
schelling’s segregation model
Axelrod’s Evolution
of Cooperation model

80. An Entire Course on
Computational Formal Models
18 Classes
and more than
1000 slides!
ICPSR
Summer
Methods
Program

81. computational
game
theory
network
models
Agent
Based
Modeling
What is Computational
Legal Studies?
Data
Analysis
Formal
Models
statistical
models
and
methods
network
analytic
methods
text
as
data

82. and more ...

83. Now Some
Selected
Applications

84. Project #1:
United States Code

85. The United States Code

86. Compiled Version of Federal Statutory Law
Drawn from the Statutes at Large
Does not Include Admin Regulations
The United States Code

87. These are the 50 titles in the Code

88. A Perspective on the Scope
of Law in a Modern Society
How Large is the United States Code?
How Complex is the United States Code?
How has its Scope Changed Over Time?
Are Changes in Code Coupled with Changes
in the Scope of the Administrative State?

89. How Large is the United States Code?

90. How Large is the United States Code?

91. How Large is the United States Code?

92. How Large is the United States Code?

93. ~Title 29 - Labor
How Large is the United States Code?

96. This is the United
States Code

97. Computational Approach to
Measurement of Complexity
Measure that Representation in a
Manner that is Qualitatively Justified
Provide a Mathematical
Representation of the Object

98. The US Code as a
Mathematical Object
Hierarchical
Structure
Title 26
Subtitle A
Chapter 1
Subchapter F
Part I
Section 501
Subsection (c)
Paragraph (3)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4146

99. Citation
Network
Example: Tax Evasion
Title 26 -
Tax
Cites
Title 18 -
Crimes &
Criminal Procedure
The US Code as a
Mathematical Object
http://computationallegalstudies.com

100. Linguistic
Content
United States Code
Features
24 Million Words
The US Code as a
Mathematical Object

101. Published in Physica A
(October 2010)
The US Code as a
Mathematical Object

102. How Complex is U.S. Code?
Ongoing Project --
Daniel Katz &
Michael Bommarito
“Measuring the Complexity
of the United States Code”

103. The Complexity of
Knowledge Acquisition
3 Factors Influence Complexity of
Executing a KA Protocol
Structure Language Dependence

104. Project #2:
Network Analysis of
the Federal Judiciary

105. the Federal Judicial Heirarchy
United States
Supreme Court
Federal Court
of Appeals
Federal District Court

106. What is the Social Topology of
the American Federal Judiciary?

107. ... And How Can We Measure it?

108. Collected Nearly 19,000 Law Clerk ‘Events’
1995 - 2005 For All Article III Judges
Relying Upon Data From Staff Directories
Network Analysis of
the Federal Judiciary

109. The Core Claim
In the Aggregate ...
Law Clerk Movements Reveal
Between Judicial Actors
Social or Professional Relationships

110. Network Analysis of
the Federal Judiciary
Judge E
Justice ZJustice Y
Judge C
Judge D
Judge B
Judge A

111. Network Analysis of
the Federal Judiciary

113. Network Analysis of
the Federal Judiciary
Daniel Katz &
Derek Stafford
(2010)

114. Project #3:
Exploring the Path of Precedent?
The Legal Genome Project
and the analysis of Judicial Citations

115. The United States Reports

116. Nodes = Cases Decided by the Supreme Court
Directed Edges = Citations between Cases
United States Supreme Court
Case to Case Citation Network

117. Case to Case Citation Network
of the
United States Supreme Court
Dickerson v. U.S.
530 U.S. 428 (2000)
Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (1966)
Oregon v. Elstad
530 U.S. 428 (2000)

118. Exploring the Path of Precedent?
Dynamic Visualization of the Early
Supreme Court Citation Network

119. Cases Decided by
the Supreme Court
Citations in the
Current Year
Citations from
prior years
http://computationallegalstudies.com/
2010/02/11/the-development-of-structure-in-
the-citation-network-of-the-united-states-
supreme-court-now-in-hd/
PLAY MOVIE!
Beijing

120. Distance Measures for
Dynamic Citation Networks

126. Growth Rules
For Citation Networks

127. Dynamic Directed
Acyclic Graphs

128. Dynamic Directed
Acyclic Graphs
Examples:
Academic Articles

129. Dynamic Directed
Acyclic Graphs
Examples:
Academic Articles
Judicial Citations

130. Dynamic Directed
Acyclic Graphs
Examples:
Academic Articles
Judicial Citations
Patent Citations

131. Network Dynamics:
The Early Jurisprudence of the
United States Supreme Court

132. Cases Decided by
the Supreme Court
Citations in the
Current Year
Citations from
prior years

133. A Formalization of D-DAG’s

134. Six Degrees of Marbury v. Madison

135. A Formalization of D-DAG’s

136. Basic Idea of Sink Based
Distance Measure

137. The Simplest Non-Trivial
Distance Measure

138. Flexible Framework For More
Detailed Specifications

139. Distance Measure
<- ->
Dendrogram

140. Potential Application to
Patent Citations?

141. Sternitzke, Bartkowski & Schramm (2008)
Potential Application to
Patent Citations?

142. http://www.eecs.umich.edu/cse/dm_11_video/erdi.mp4
http://people.kzoo.edu/~perdi/Talk By Péter Érdi
Network Analysis of
Patent Citations

143. http://ssrn.com/author=627779
http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.1819available at:

144. Additional
Materials
Available
Online!

145. @computational
Thank You For Your Attention!

146. Professor Daniel Martin Katz
Illinois Tech - Chicago Kent College of Law
@computationaldanielmartinkatz.com computationallegalstudies.com