Certificate in Legal Analytics & Innovation

Using big data to solve big problems

Lawyers and researchers are using computers to mine a variety of legal documents. This is changing the way lawyers work. Now, instead of guessing the likely outcome of a case, computers are able to predict results. Attorneys can use this information to inform their approach to working a case. A certificate in Legal Analytics prepares students to use technology in the workplace.

We are living in a time of revolutionary change in the way that the law is studied and practiced. Legal scholars, lawyers, data scientists and tech entrepreneurs are using machine learning, natural language processing, programming and high-performance computing to analyze legal documents in completely new ways. The demand for these skills is high. Students who are familiar with the tools of legal analytics can better prepare themselves for a lasting legal career with this certificate.

What is Legal Analytics?

The field of legal analytics uses computing power to analyze text from legal documents, treating words more like numerical data. Computer algorithms, combined with the knowledge of data scientists and lawyers, can provide insights about what happened in the past and what may happen in the future.

Overview

Students pursuing a certificate in Legal Analytics have the opportunity to participate in a number of research, experiential learning and extracurricular activities.

Research: The Legal Analytics & Innovation Initiative also works with external partners in the legal community to put legal analytics advances into practice, develop new learning opportunities and share cutting-edge research insights.
Hands-on Learning: Students can take part in workshops and training sessions hosted at the College of Law or Robinson College of Business. There are also opportunities to work with clients, serve as a graduate research assistant and pursue summer internship placements at firms that are using this technology.
Legal Analytics Lab: In the Legal Analytics Lab at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business Institute for Insight, faculty, students and corporate partners use the tools of big data analytics to produce original research.

Benefits

Students learn to identify patterns, using big data analytics, including text mining, machine learning, image analysis and other methodologies to produce research. They unlock insights from thousands of pages of text, using computational techniques.
They work with faculty, law firms and companies to help organizations examine predictive results from volumes of documents and other data.
Research quantifies types and frequency of case outcomes with hopes of revealing predictive behavior and outcomes.
Students examine analytics tools to leverage emerging technologies in law practices as informed consumers and competent technology partners.

Certificate Requirements

(Requires 21 credit hours)

Students must be in good academic standing, based on the successful completion of the first full year of law study (30 hours), to participate in the certificate program. Students must remain in good standing to continue program participation.

Required Courses (15 credit hours)

LAW 7674 Legal Analytics I (3 credits)
LAW 7675E/MSA 8350 Legal Analytics II (3 credits, experiential)
LAW 7676E Applied Legal Analytics Lab (3 credits, experiential)

J.D. students with prior mathematics/computer programming background:

Any two MSA-prefix courses, chosen in consultation with the student’s faculty advisor and LAII faculty. MSA courses may have their own prerequisites in addition to foundational math and computer science courses.

J.D. students without a strong math and programming background:

MATH 7100– Basic Math for Analytics (1.5 credits)
CSC 2032– Programming Foundations for Analytics (1.5 credits)
MATH 7110 -Mathematical Foundations for Analytics (3 credits)

Foundation courses: The Executive Director, in consultation with the LAII Faculty Director and others, will determine whether a Certificate student is required to take the foundational math and programming courses. That decision is final.

Non-law courses and credits: J.D. law students are only eligible to count six hours of non-law school classes toward the 90 credits required to graduate. The student must obtain a grade of “B” or better in non-law school classes in order to count them toward graduation. Students may take additional non-law classes while enrolled; credits exceeding 6 hours, however, will not count towards law school graduation.

Elective Courses (minimum of 6 credit hours)

Students will select their six hours of elective courses from the following list. Students must take at least six credit hours from the list of approved electives.

LAW 7139– e-Discovery
LAW 7050– Advanced Legal Research
LAW 7137– Cyberlaw
LAW 7631– Contract Drafting & Risk Analysis
LAW 7138– Computers and the Law Seminar
LAW 7136– Complex Litigation
LAW 7336– Fundamentals of Law Practice
LAW 7293– Seminar on Judicial Power (Corpus Linguistics)
LAW 7355– Law and Emerging Technologies
LAW 7632– The Role of In-House Counsel
LAW– Legal Tech. Competency & Operations
Additional approved electives

Legal analytics is a new and growing field. The list of eligible electives for students will be updated as new courses are developed or existing courses are dropped or changed and the LAII reserves the right to change the list of courses if required.

Writing Requirement

Students must complete a substantial writing project on a Legal Analytics & Innovation topic, which may also be used to satisfy the College of Law’s writing requirement. Written projects for Moot Court or writing competitions DO NOT satisfy the certificate writing requirement unless they otherwise meet the College of Law writing requirement. The writing project must be pre-approved by your faculty advisor and the faculty member who will supervise the project (if different). For courses and independent research for faculty members teaching courses not listed above, you should coordinate in advance with your certificate faculty advisor to ensure that the
project will meet the writing requirement for this program.

Extracurricular Activity

Students are encouraged to participate in legal analytics extracurricular activities such as:

workshops and boot camp training sessions hosted at the College of Law or Robinson College of Business,
participate in additional client-focused data projects (“sprints”),
work with affiliated faculty as a GRA,
and pursue internship placements as they become available

Grades and Honors

A minimum GPA of 3.0 is required across all courses taken in satisfaction of the certificate requirements, including the writing requirement. If you take more than the minimum number of courses needed to fulfill certificate requirements, the highest certificate fulfilling grades will be used to calculate the certificate GPA. If you take multiple courses that may count for a single requirement, the highest grade fulfilling that requirement will be counted for GPA purposes.

Honors will be awarded for achievement of a GPA of 3.6 or higher in all Legal Analytics & Innovation courses taken for the certificate and any additional Legal Analytics & Innovation electives taken above and beyond the requirements. If you do not pass a course taken toward the certificate and you retake the course, both the failing grade from the first attempt and the passing grade from the second attempt will be calculated in the GPA, and you must still maintain a 3.6 to receive honors in the certificate program.

Application

To apply, submit the Declaration of Interest Form to the Executive Director of the Legal Analytics & Innovation Initiative. Interested students may apply as early as the spring semester of the first year of the full-time program or spring semester of the second year of the part-time program. Students may also apply anytime thereafter, assuming there is enough time to satisfy the certificate requirements before graduation.

The declaration of interest form is not binding. Students may opt out of the program at any time.

Verification

To graduate with a certificate, students must submit a Verification for Certificate in Legal Analytics for review no later than the end of the drop/add period of a student’s last semester prior to graduation. The form must be signed by the student’s academic advisor.

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