Pre-conference workshop
AI-Driven Open Science Methods for Empirical Legal Scholars
The use of AI-driven research tools and adherence to open science standards represent a research
culture-shift for empirical legal scholars. Currently, the field of Empirical Legal Studies is in full development when it comes to conducting scholarly research using legal data and AI-driven research tools.
This interactive, half-day workshop will therefore train empirical legal scholars to use new European
funded AI-driven research tools that contain European-level legal data in a way that is compatible
with open science principles.
The main objectives of this workshop are to:
1. Empower methodological innovation by equipping participants with the technical
proficiency to navigate purpose-built AI platforms, enabling high-speed, analytics across
comprehensive legal datasets.
2. Establish Open Science by embedding standards for openness into the empirical legal
research process.
3. Bridge (legal) domain expertise and AI to foster a critical, hand-on understanding of AI-
driven research tools.
The workshop is particularly relevant to early career researchers who wish to develop their research
methods training to include AI-tools that have been designed to work specifically with legal data in a
way that adheres to open science standards. In addition, the workshop will also be valuable to those
who collaborate with others on cross-jurisdictional research and/or who seek to include scholarship
from other disciplines where Open Science is expected (e.g., Psychology). The workshop will also be
valuable to those who wish to learn more about how funding bodies and academic journals consider
AI-driven research and open science, as well as for those reviewing for funding bodies and academic
journals where Open Science represents an evaluation criterion.
Organisation and delivery of the workshop is funded by three Europe-based national funding
agencies i.e., ANR (France), EPSRC (UK) and NCN (Poland), under the European Chist-era banner.
From 2024-2026, these agencies together funded the design and development of AI-driven tools for
empirical legal research. The tools were designed in collaboration with legal experts, practitioners
and policymakers in Poland and the UK, and are now being shared with the wider empirical legal
research community. The workshop organisers are internationally recognized experts on researching
with court records and legal judgments (DHAMI) and adhering to open science (BOUKACEM).
Date: Wednesday 17 June 2026, 9.30 – 13:00 CEST
Location: Ljubljana (details follow after registration)
Registration fee: free of charge
No-Show Policy
Please note that the ESELS Workshops are given by experts in the field who do this on a voluntary basis. Places are limited and we often have people on the waiting list. In case you are prevented from attending the workshop, kindly send an email to well before the workshop to make space available for people on the waiting list.
If you do not attend the workshop without prior cancellation, you will unfortunately no longer be able to register for future workshops. This is very unfortunate, but can easily be prevented with a simple e-mail.
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