Sharing and Caring: Creating a Culture of Constructive Criticism in Computational Legal Studies

19 Pages Posted: 27 Apr 2022

See all articles by Corinna Coupette

Corinna Coupette

Max Planck Institute for Informatics

Dirk Hartung

Bucerius Law School - Center for Legal Technology and Data Science; Stanford University - Stanford Codex Center

Date Written: April 2, 2022

Abstract

We introduce seven foundational principles for creating a culture of constructive criticism in computational legal studies. Beginning by challenging the current perception of papers as the primary scholarly output, we call for a more comprehensive interpretation of publications. We then suggest to make these publications computationally reproducible, releasing all of the data and all of the code all of the time, on time, and in the most functioning form possible. Subsequently, we invite constructive criticism in all phases of the publication life cycle. We posit that our proposals will help form our field, and float the idea of marking this maturity by the creation of a modern flagship publication outlet for computational legal studies.

Keywords: legal data science, quantitative legal studies, empirical legal studies, computational reproducibility, peer review

JEL Classification: C18, C80, C88, C90, K00

Suggested Citation

Coupette, Corinna and Hartung, Dirk, Sharing and Caring: Creating a Culture of Constructive Criticism in Computational Legal Studies (April 2, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4089123 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4089123

Corinna Coupette (Contact Author)

Max Planck Institute for Informatics ( email )

Germany

Dirk Hartung

Bucerius Law School - Center for Legal Technology and Data Science ( email )

Jungiusstr. 6
Hamburg, 20355
Germany

Stanford University - Stanford Codex Center ( email )

559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://law.stanford.edu/directory/dirk-hartung/

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