96121 - Legal Tech

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, each student will acquire competences to understand technological phenomena that involve her/his future activity as a legal expert, including blockchain, smart contracts, digital signatures, digital identity, digital services in the public administration, legal design, legal data analytics tools, and artificial intelligence as a support tool for legal professionals.

Course contents

The course is divided into four modules, each covering a specific area of expertise:

1. Blockchain and Legal Applications

This module offers a theoretical and practical workshop dedicated to blockchain technology. The theoretical foundations of DLT, smart contracts, and tokenization are explored, with a focus on the related Italian and European legal and regulatory aspects. Practical applications in the legal sector, such as digital identities, trust services, and digital currencies, are discussed. The module includes interactive demos and simulations with specific software to develop skills in the digital transformation of legal professions, learning to understand and adopt blockchain in professional practice. The workshop also includes the introduction and discussion of topics from a more technical perspective, allowing students to experience firsthand the use of some of the technologies introduced during the course through the use of practical and everyday examples.

A group exercise will be conducted.

2. AI, LLM in the Legal Professions

This module focuses on the application of advanced technologies to the legal professions, particularly data science and generative artificial intelligence. Specifically, the module involves the use of KNIME data analysis software, which allows practical data analysis experiments through a graphical interface and without requiring specific skills. This part of the course will demonstrate methods for visualizing and synthesizing data, and will introduce natural language processing and machine learning. Regarding generative artificial intelligence, simple legal use cases will be analyzed, and the results of applying these tools to the legal field will be analyzed using small language models. During the experiments, the main methods for evaluating artificial intelligence systems and the specifics of such evaluation in the legal field will be discussed.

A group exercise will be conducted.

3. Open Data and Legal Design

This module will explore the fundamentals of Open Government Data as a tool for anti-corruption and legality, transparency of administrative action, interoperability between administrations, and an economic lever for data sharing in the digital economy. It will address issues related to licensing, open formats, standard metadata, and legal analysis of data before opening it to prevent the dissemination of personal data or illicit content. Open data will also be visualized using legal design techniques to better communicate legal messages using multimedia.

A group exercise will be conducted.

4. Cybersecurity and Legal Professions

The primary goal of the module is to enable students to manage complex and multidisciplinary regulatory issues in the emerging field of cybersecurity law. The module will focus on the technical aspects of cybersecurity (e.g., actors involved, threats, and technical measures), the relevant EU and national legislative framework, as well as some underlying ethical issues (e.g., the main relationships between cybersecurity and fundamental rights, both from an instrumental and conflict perspective), from an integrated perspective. The following topics will be addressed: Threat landscape and actors; The evolution of European cybersecurity law and the security of network and information systems: the NIS and NIS2 directives; Product security and voluntary certification (Cybersecurity Act) and obligations (Cyber Resilience Act); Information security and data breaches; The national regulatory framework and the National Cybersecurity Perimeter and the National Cybersecurity Agency.

A group exercise will be conducted.

Readings/Bibliography

Legal Design: book under publication

AI and Data analytics: slides

Open government data: slides

Blockchain: slides

Teaching methods

Lectures

The course includes lectures and in-class workshops to apply the learning-by-doing method.

The instructor uses slides to summarize the topics covered, along with videos and practical demonstrations.

Seminars on specific topics may be offered during the course, as their relevance suggests useful reflections on the subject matter. These seminars feature external experts who can integrate the topics covered with a broad perspective. The course includes practical group exercises that provide opportunities for assessing learning.

Attendance
Attendance is not mandatory but is extremely beneficial for achieving the course's learning objectives. This enables students to quickly learn the terminology, fundamentals, and basic principles, which become essential elements for independent and critical study of the subject matter. Attendance also allows students to translate theoretical foundations into practice using innovative teaching techniques and methods, such as group work and laboratory activities.

Assessment methods

Learning assessment will be conducted through the evaluation of four practical exercises, completed in the form of a project or group paper (four members) relating to the four modules.

The exercises completed during the course and accompanied by a slide presentation will be presented during the exam.

Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Student workers will be able to access the agreed upon modality.

Teaching tools

In the section “Teaching resources” of this page, also reachable via the webpage <https://virtuale.unibo.it/course/>, each student will find a list of information related to the course, teachers’ activities, up-to-date legislation, lecture slides and other materials that support exam preparation.

Teaching tools to be used in the course of exam preparation are.

- Lecture slides that the teacher publishes in the “Teaching resources” section of this page, also reachable via the webpage <https://virtuale.unibo.it/course/>,

- Readings and in-depth materials, mainly proposed to focus and tackle innovative topis in the subject (“Teaching resources” section of this page, also reachable via the webpage <https://virtuale.unibo.it/course/>),

- Lecture log, publishes by the teacher, work in progress, at the end of each lecture (sec. Useful contents). The Log details the list of topics covered, the links to the shown slides, references to the book or additional readings. Students, in particular those not attending the course, are recommended to refer to the sequence of covered topics, as displayed in the Log, to better organise their autonomous study.

Office hours

See the website of Monica Palmirani

See the website of Chantal Bomprezzi

See the website of Michele Corazza