ESELS Conference Report Ljubljana 2026

Annual Conference 18-19 June

Highlights ESELS Ljubljana 2026

On 18-19 June 2026 the 4th Annual ESELS Conference took place in the School of Economics and Business, Ljubljana. More than 120 participants from all over Europe and the world gathered in the heart of the beautiful Slovenian capital city. For 2 days full of discussions on the latest research in the field of Empirical Legal Studies.

Opening day

Wednesday 17 June was filled with highly inspiring and interactive ESELS Pre-Conference Workshops. The workshops were delivered by experts on LLMs, Interviews, Open Science and Causal Inferences. Participants from various countries came together and benefited from the methodological insights shared in the Workshops for their own future research projects.

That evening the Opening Reception took place on a very special and culturally important location: the Philharmonic Hall Ljubljana. After a warm welcome by Conference Organizer Mitja Kovač it was more than an honour to have Nuška Drašček, soloist of the Slovene National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana. Nuška delivered an outstanding musical performance that the ESELS Community will not forget. It was an unforgettable opening of the ESELS Annual Conference 2026.

Thursday 18 June (Day 1)

The first day, Thursday 18 June, started with Opening addresses by Tomaž Turk, Dean of the School of Economics and Business, ESELS Local Organizer Mitja Kovač, and ESELS President Tilmann Altwicker.

After the opening, it was a great honour for ESELS to have Jonathan Klick delivering the first keynote of the ESELS Conference 2026. Klick’s keynote was entitled “How do we add value after robots take over: empirical scholars in the age of AI” and followed by a lively interaction with the participating ESELS audience.

At the end of the morning, after the first coffee break, the first panel sessions were scheduled: all sessions were marked by a wide variety of different ELS topics and a wide variety of methodological approaches (both qualitative and quantitative) to the law and legal data. Topics included, among others, AI and Legal Reasoning, Empirical Approaches to Constitutions and the Judiciary and Criminal Law and Justice in Europe.

After the networking lunch the panel sessions continued in the afternoon, with topics such as EU Borders and Trade, Empirical Approaches to Judges and Legal Training and Access to Justice in Europe. This was followed by the ESELS 2026 Poster Session in the late afternoon: 7 Presenters pitched their ELS Research Posters within 3 minutes to the ESELS Expert Jury. After another round of engaging Panel Presentations it was a pleasure to have ESELS keynote speaker Peter Grajzl presenting on “MLLLMing Legal History”.

The ESELS Conference Dinner on Thursday Evening in Hotel Slon, with over 60 ELS scholars attending. The Conference Dinner was marked by outstanding Slovenian cuisine and musical performance by Maja Bobnar – Majči. After a long day this was also the time and place to announce the winners of the ESELS 2026 Recognitions.

Tomas Koref won the ESELS 2026 Early Career Paper Recognition with the paper “How Continental Courts Reason”. The ESELS 2026 Early Career Poster Recognition was awarded to Sam Chollet with the Poster Queer Lawfare”: how are LGBTI+ rights litigated in Strasbourg. Congratulations to Tomas and Sam!

Friday 19 June (Day 2)

The final day of the ESELS 2026 Conference started off with panel presentations on EU Competition Law, Datasets, Law and Economics, International Courts and Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law in Europe. At the end of the Friday morning it was a pleasure to have ESELS Past President Urška Šadl moderating the interactive panel discussion. On the topic of  “Empirical legal studies, judiciary and legal practitioners: challenges and opportunities” distinguished panelists Heico Kerkmeester, Urška Kežmah, Ana Kerševan, Špela Vizjak engaged in a lively exchange of thoughts on stage.

On Friday also the ESELS 2026 General Assembly took place. Here, the attending members of the Society elected Mathias Siems as ESELS Future President as well as Päivi Leino-Sandberg as new ESELS Board member. Future Organizer Ana Lourenco delivered an inspiring promotional talk on ESELS Porto 2027.

At the end of another long but very rewarding conference day, for some already starting with a yoga session at 6.40, it was time for ESELS President Or Brook to deliver a word of thanks, A big thanks to the outstanding local organization and a word of appreciation to Tilmann Altwicker for successfully serving as our ESELS President over the last year.

In the following Closing Panel “Global Perspectives on the Development of ELS in Europe”, with presenters Jennifer Robbennolt, Luciana Morilas, Keren Weinshall, Ryohei Hisano, ESELS secretary Erik Wesselius and chaired by Or Brook, intra-European and global views on the field of Empirical-Legal Studies in Europe were shared and discussed. One of the main challenges as discussed here was to keep having shared European conversations about the scope of ELS. In particular about what unites us given our wide diversity of methodological approaches and legal fields that is so characteristic of ELS in Europe.

The ESELS 2026 Ljubljana Conference officially ended with organizer Mitja Kovač handing over the ESELS flag to Ana Lourenco, receiving the flag on behalf of the Porto 2027 local organizing committee.

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