Events
Current event SS 2024
Pro-/Seminar on the law of democratic parliamentary elections
The European elections will take place in 2024!
The proseminar deals with questions of electoral law. In the first hour, we will first learn how scientific work and classical legal thinking and argumentation work, then we will delve into electoral law.
How the right to vote has developed historically and what elections are available for people living in Germany. There will also be comparative studies of various foreign legal systems in contrast to the German legal system, e.g. in connection with questions regarding the possibility of proxy voting or in connection with various minimum/maximum voting ages. In addition to questions of substantive law, it will also deal with the various legal remedies available in the German legal system for contesting elections or the right to vote. Finally, there will be an outlook on possible technical possibilities (e.g. via legal tech tools) of democratic participation, as well as in connection with demoscopic, sociological and psychological questions. At the end of the last double lesson, topics will be assigned, such as:
- The right to vote in antiquity
- The development of voting rights in modern times (from three-class voting rights to voting rights from birth?)
- Comparative presentation of European, Bundestag, Bavarian state parliament and local elections using the example of BVerfG of 15.4.2019 – 2 BvQ 22/19
- Legal remedies in European, Bundestag, Bavarian state parliament and municipal elections in comparative presentation
- Comparative legal studies on voting age restrictions in various legal systems
- Comparative legal studies on the possibility of proxy voting in various legal systems
- Article 7 of the Bavarian Constitution and minimum age for basic rights and the right to vote
- How is the count carried out in Bundestag elections? – Differences between the D’Hondt, Hare-Niemeyer and Sainte-Laguë methods (counting and success value, overhang mandates, reforms)
- Voting rights from birth and elections to the German Bundestag
- Sociological and demoscopic issues in the discussion about the right to vote from birth and lowering the voting age
- The influence of technology (e.g. (social) bots) on the formation of political opinion/the election campaign/the election result – USA? Fukushima?
- Use of modern technology (legal tech?) for surveys and political participation
The proseminar is aimed in particular at students in their first four semesters. Special prior knowledge of electoral law, constitutional law or legal history would be helpful, but is not expected. Introductory information on the respective topics as well as information on introductory literature will be provided during the first few dates and also specifically when the topics are assigned and prepared.
In order to obtain a graded proseminar certificate in accordance with § 10 para. 1 3.4 para. 2 StO, students are required to prepare a written proseminar paper of approx. 15 pages, an oral presentation of the main results of the paper followed by a discussion, as well as regular active participation in the proseminar.
In order to obtain a graded seminar certificate, a written seminar paper of approx. 15 pages and an oral presentation of the main results of the paper followed by a discussion as well as regular active participation in the proseminar are required.
ECTS: 5 The seminar is suitable as a key qualification.
In any case, the events will take place online via Zoom from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. c.t. (and only exceptionally in face-to-face events in JDC R. 1.281- seminar room Juridicum, entrance Schillerstrasse 1 in 91054 Erlangen, if announced separately in advance). In any case, the first event will only take place via Zoom. First, there will be a general introduction to academic work. This will cover formal requirements, literature research, citation techniques, style of writing, etc. At the end of the general introduction, there will be a special introduction to the topics to be dealt with later. During the last course, the topics are selected and assigned together with the students. After this, there will initially be no further pro/seminar events in a period to be announced in order to give the students the opportunity to prepare their contributions. However, you can still contact me individually if you have any questions during this period.
Finally, the presentations and subsequent discussion will take place in the upcoming proseminar events, with two presentations per event.
The seminar will take place exclusively as a Zoom meeting on Thursdays from 2-4 pm c.t. (1st date: 18.4.2024).
Registration for this proseminar is possible via StudOn. The number of participants is limited to 15.
You can find the complete announcement here.
Last events
WS 2023/24
Pro-/seminar: Law, technology and business models for resolving (civil) disputes with the help of legal tech (e.g. online dispute resolution and debt collection business models such as Flightright)
The aim of the course is to give students an overview of business models and tools, particularly in the area of out-of-court online dispute resolution on the one hand and in the area of debt collection business models, such as Flightright, on the other. At the same time, some results and correlations from the final report of the research project “Research into the decline in the number of cases received by the civil courts” of 21.4.2023 will be discussed. Questions about future developments will be explored, such as
- How will (civil) conflicts of interest and disputes be resolved in the future?
- Will the importance of civil justice decrease?
- Will other (private sector) technology-based providers resolve more and more conflicts of interest and, if so, how and according to which rules?
- What does this mean for our constitutional state?
In interdisciplinary teams of two consisting of students of law, computer science, linguistic computer science and digital humanities and social sciences, a joint written paper is to be produced that researches, presents and evaluates the relevant law, the technology used, the significance for legal practice and the business model pursued for specific tools already on the market, such as Flightright.
At the end of the last introductory double lesson, the topics are then assigned in order to present, for example, the following tools, the underlying legislation, the technology used, the significance for legal practice and the realized business model:
- Flightright
- Fairplane
- Rail Buddy
- Zug-Erstattung.de
- geblitzt.de
- Accident heroes
- MieterEngel
- wenigermiete.de
- eBay (resolves approx. 60 million disputes annually – three times as many as in the entire US jurisdiction)
- UNO ODR Model Law
- ICANN
- Modria
- The online arbitrator
- Euro-Label
- Internet Ombudsman
- Lawyer for divorces
- EU OS platform
- You are also welcome to develop and present your own idea for a tool (legal, technical, business model)
The proseminar is aimed in particular at students in the first four semesters of law, computer science, linguistic computer science and digital humanities and social sciences. Special prior knowledge of argumentation theory, legal methodology or computer science would be helpful, but is not expected. Introductory information on the respective topics as well as information on introductory literature will be provided during the first sessions and also specifically when the topics are assigned and prepared.
In order to obtain a graded proseminar certificate in accordance with Section 35 (1) 2 StuPO Jura, students are required to complete a written proseminar paper of approx. 15 pages, give an oral presentation on the main findings of the paper followed by a discussion, and actively participate in the proseminar on a regular basis.
In order to obtain a graded seminar certificate, a written seminar paper of approx. 15 pages and an oral presentation of the main results of the paper followed by a discussion, as well as regular active participation in the proseminar are required.
ECTS: 5 The seminar is suitable as a key qualification.
First, there is a general introduction to academic work. This covers formal requirements, literature research, citation techniques, style of writing, etc. At the end of the general introduction, there will then be a special introduction to the topics to be dealt with later. After this, there will initially be no further proseminar events in a period to be announced in order to give the students the opportunity to prepare their contributions. However, you can still contact us individually if you have any questions during this period. Finally, in the upcoming proseminar events, the presentations will be followed by a discussion, with two presentations per event.
The events will only take place online via Zoom,
each Thursday from 2-4 p.m. c.t. (1st date: October 19, 2023): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4962723955?pwd=eGNLeU1ueGs1aExMMTBQOS9PSEpmUT09
Registration for this proseminar is possible via StudOn. The number of participants is limited to 16 people, taking into account the interdisciplinary nature of the teams.
The complete announcement can be found here.
Lecture on Legal AI
Together with the K.I. Park at the FAU on Legal-Tech (further information at: https://www.legal-ai.rw.fau.de) we are organizing a practice-oriented lecture on legal-AI.
In the lecture, students will be introduced to the concepts of AI and its legal framework and will get an overview of the applications of artificial intelligence in law that are already possible and may become possible in the future. In the second half of the lecture, students will be tasked with developing their own legal tech application under the supervision of the lecturers.
The lecture is designed for two semesters. For successful participation, 5 ECTS will be awarded and a certificate in Legal Tech will be issued by K.I. Park Berlin. The course in the first of the two semesters, WS 2022/23, will always take place online via Zoom https://fau.zoom-x.de/j/67962960903) on Thursday 18-20 (c.t.), starting on 26.10.2023.
The slides and further information on the course can be found on StudOn.
SS 2023
Pro-/seminar: Legal argumentation and “Artificial Intelligence”
The seminar was organized with the support of Prof. Dr. Alexander Steen – Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Greifswald – and Mr. Lucca Baumgärtner student of computer science at the FAU.
The aim of the seminar was to familiarize students with legal argumentation and methods on the one hand and propositional, predicate and deontic logic on the other. In interdisciplinary teams consisting of students of law, computer science, linguistic computer science and digital humanities and social sciences, a legal case solution was to be formalized as precisely and comprehensively as possible in logic in order to gain important experience.
This was to be done using a legal tech tool. Once the legal case solution had been formalized, the tool’s proof maker could then be used, for example, to automatically check whether the legal argumentation is consistent. The interpretation and application of legal texts to a specific life situation requires a high level of knowledge, experience and the ability to make numerous contextual considerations from human experts. The formalization and automation of such a process in a computer-aided procedure must reflect this accordingly.
Based on a case study, this course identified the necessary legal steps in the application of the law and assigned them to various object and meta-levels. This assignment allowed analyses and the discussion of software requirements that legal assistance systems must generally fulfill in order to be able to support legal case decisions. The task given to the students was a particularly difficult one, as different disciplines had to be brought together and a tool was used that is currently being further developed. For this reason, the teams were accompanied and guided in their work over several tutorial events during the processing period.
The teams submitted the following as pro/seminar work: 1. a jointly developed legal case solution (corresponding in scope, content and form to a “classic” legal term paper/seminar paper); 2. a jointly created formalization of this legal case solution in the tool; 3. an experience report created individually by each participant. Finally, all these results were presented in a joint presentation and the tool was tried out with the formalized case solution.
The proseminar was aimed in particular at students in the first four semesters of law, computer science, linguistic computer science and digital humanities and social sciences. Special prior knowledge of argumentation theory, legal methodology or computer science would be helpful, but was not expected. Introductory information on the content of the respective topics and information on introductory literature was provided during the first sessions and also specifically when the topics were assigned and prepared.
In order to obtain a graded proseminar certificate in accordance with § 10 para. 1 3.4 para. 2 StO, the preparation of a written proseminar paper of approx. 15 pages, an oral presentation of the main results of the paper with subsequent discussion, as well as regular active participation in the proseminar were required.
In order to obtain a graded seminar certificate, a written seminar paper of approx. 15 pages and an oral presentation of the main results of the paper followed by a discussion as well as regular active participation in the proseminar were required.
ECTS: 5 The seminar is suitable as a key qualification.
First, a general introduction to academic work was given. It dealt with formal requirements, literature research, citation techniques, style of writing, etc. At the end of the general introduction, there was a special introduction to the issues to be dealt with later and to the use of the tool.
After this, there were initially no further proseminar events in a period to be announced in order to give the students the opportunity to prepare their contributions. However, you could still contact us individually if you had any questions during this period.
Finally, the presentations and subsequent discussions took place in the upcoming proseminar events, with two presentations per event and the formalizations were demonstrated and evaluated using the tool.
The events only took place online via Zoom, each Thursday from 10-12 a.m. c.t. (1st date: April 20, 2023 after the Easter vacations):
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4962723955?pwd=eGNLeU1ueGs1aExMMTBQOS9PSEpmUT09
Registration for this proseminar was possible via StudOn. The number of participants was limited to 15, taking into account the interdisciplinary nature of the teams.
You can find the complete announcement here.
WS 2022/23
Lecture on the topic of law through machines and artificial intelligence From compliance bot to digital assistant for the registry court
In the winter semester, Prof. Axel Adrian gave a lecture on the topic of Law through Machines and Artificial Intelligence From Compliance Bot to Digital Assistant for the Registry Court. The lecture dealt with the area of “law through technology” as opposed to questions of “law through technology”.
It covered the following topics, with guest speakers also being invited:
- Legal-Tech – 20.10.2022
- e-Government and e-Justice (e.g. land register in the blockchain) – 27.10.2022
- AI in law (AI and Law) – 10.11.2022
- Natural Language Processing/Computational Linguistics (e.g. Argumentation Mining) by Prof. Dr. Stephanie Evert/Philipp Heinrich (FAU) – 17.11.2022
- Symbolic AI (e.g. logic, machine reasoning, formal argumentation theory) by Prof. Dr. Alexander Steen (University of Greifswald)/Max Rapp (FAU) – 24.11.2022
- subsymbolic AI (e.g. machine learning, deep learning) by Dr. Thomas Proisl (BAMF, Nuremberg) – 1.12.2022
- our tool for the automatic drafting of developer contracts in the notary’s office with Aurelius Adrian (FAU) – 8.12.2022
- our compliance bot with lawyer Anabel Adrian, Nuremberg, lawyer Martin Kurtze (Siemens Energy, Erlangen) – 15.12.2022
- Tools for mass actions in court in legal practice (e.g. Dieselgate) by Dr. Philipp Steinrück and Dr. Christoph von Laufenberg (Latham & Watkins LLP, Munich) – 12.1.2023
- Digital contract review tool in the industrial law department by lawyer Martin Kurtze (Siemens Energy, Erlangen) – 19.1.2023
- our prototype for the automatic anonymization of court judgments with Prof. Dr. Stephanie Evert (FAU) – 26.1.2023
- our research project “Digital Register Assistant” with Prof. Dr. Stephanie Evert, Prof. Dr. Michael Kohlhase, Prof. Dr. Lutz Schröder and Prof. Dr. Andreas Maier (FAU) – 2.2.2023
In general, the focus was on questions such as: What is there to legal tech? What is actually already technically possible and what is more due to marketing? What is already being practiced in law firms? What activities are expected of future lawyers and IT specialists? What can today’s students do? Will computer scientists increasingly provide legal advice in the future? Will an automated judge decide cases in the end? Are jobs in danger?
The aim of the lecture was to “whet the appetite for more” and to give those interested in technology an insight into legal thinking and legal processes and, conversely, to make those interested in law curious about legal tech tools and computer science considerations.
You can find the complete announcement here.
Lecture on Legal AI
We also organized a lecture on legal tech at the K.I. Park at FAU (further information at: https://www.legal-ai.rw.fau.de), which was held over the course of a semester. For successful participation, 5 ECTS were awarded and a certificate in Legal Tech was issued by K.I. Park Berlin. The course was aimed at students of law and the A.I. Masters as well as all other interested parties.
In the lecture, students were introduced to the concepts of AI and its legal framework and were given an overview of the applications of artificial intelligence in law that are already possible and may become possible in the future. In the second half of the lecture, the students were given the task of developing their own legal tech application under the supervision of the lecturers.
The slides of the lecture can be found here.
SS 2022
Pro-/seminar
In the first four double lessons of the pro/seminar, students were introduced to the topics. First of all, a general introduction was given to how academic work and argumentation work. The content then covered topics from law as well as logic and theoretical computer science. Then questions of logic and subsumption in legal methodology and in the application of law were examined. Using the legal literature, students were able to clarify for specific authors how they assess the use and performance of logic in the application of law, especially in subsumption, and where the limits of logic in jurisprudence are located. On the other hand, it should also be examined which formal systems in logic and theoretical computer science are being discussed today in order to formalize legal norms and what problems exist in the process.
Guest speaker Prof. Dr. Alexander Steen (Junior Professor of Computer Science at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Greifswald) gave us – via Zoom – easily understandable insights into current questions of logic and theoretical computer science in relation to the challenges of applying the law. We hoped for a mutual discussion between students of law, computer science, linguistic computer science, digital humanities, philosophy, etc. At the end of the fourth double lesson, the topics were then assigned, such as
- Logic, subsumption and judicial syllogism of the application of law according to classical legal methodology
- The judicial syllogism and syllogistics according to Aristotle
- Subsumption and judgment according to Kant
- Subsumption according to Hegel
- Logical studies on the application of the law by Engisch
- Lege and deduction, induction and abduction according to Peirce in the application of law
- Subsumption models in legal methodology according to Larenz vs. Zippelius
- Legal subsumption according to rules? (Neumann, Koch/Rüßmann)
- Norms logic according to Ota Weinberger and other formal systems discussed in legal literature
- Concept of artificial intelligence: symbolic AI vs. pattern recognition (sub-symbolic AI)
- Not all birds fly: Can non-monotonic reasoning and mathematical logic co-exist?
- Chisholm’s paradox: The limits of deontic logic as modal logic
- The pragmatic oddity of deontic logics
- How do contemporary logics solve deontic paradoxes?
- Comparison of modal logics and norm-based logics
- How do logics deal with normative conflicts?
- How can legal norms be represented in a computer? (Example: LegalRuleML)
- How does a knowledge database for legal norms work? (e.g. DAPRECO)
You can find the complete announcement here.
WS 2021/22
Pro-/seminar
The seminar was organized with the support of Prof. Dr. Alexander Steen – Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Greifswald – and Max Rapp, research assistant to Prof. Dr. Michael Kohlhase, Knowledge Representation and Processing at FAU. The aim of the seminar was to familiarize students with legal argumentation and methods on the one hand and propositional, predicate and deontic logic on the other. In interdisciplinary teams consisting of students of law, computer science, linguistic computer science and digital humanities and social sciences, a legal case solution was to be formalized as precisely and comprehensively as possible in logic in order to gain important experience. This was to be done using the tool “NAI” (The Normative Reasoner – see https://tutorial.normativeai.com/). After formalizing the legal case solution, the tool’s reasoner could then be used, for example, to automatically check whether the legal reasoning is consistent. The interpretation and application of legal texts to a specific life situation requires a high level of knowledge, experience and the ability to make numerous contextual considerations from human experts. The formalization and automation of such a process in a computer-aided procedure must reflect this accordingly. Based on a case study, this course identified the necessary legal steps in the application of the law and assigned them to various object and meta-levels. This assignment allows an analysis and discussion of software requirements that legal assistance systems must generally fulfill in order to be able to support legal case decisions. The task set for the students was a particularly difficult one, as different disciplines had to be brought together and a tool was used that is currently being further developed. For this reason, the teams were accompanied and guided in their work over several tutorial events during the processing period. The teams submitted the following as pro/seminar work: 1. a jointly developed legal case solution (corresponding in scope, content and form to a “classic” legal term paper/seminar paper); 2. a jointly created formalization of this legal case solution in the NAI tool; 3. an individual experience report prepared by each participant. Finally, all these results were presented in a joint presentation and the NAI tool was tried out with the formalized case solution.
The proseminar is aimed in particular at students in their first four semesters. Special prior knowledge of argumentation theory, legal methodology or scientific theory would be helpful, but is not expected. Introductory information on the content of the respective topics as well as information on introductory literature was provided during the first sessions and also specifically during the assignment and preparation of the topics.
The videos of the course can be found here.
You can find the slides for the course here.
SS 2021
Pro-/seminar
The pro-/seminar took place as a Zoom meeting.
In the summer semester 2021, I held a pro/seminar on the law of democratic parliamentary elections.
In the proseminar, the first hour taught how academic work and classical legal thinking and argumentation work. It then dealt with questions of electoral law.
How has the right to vote developed historically and what elections are there for people living in Germany. There were also comparative studies of various foreign legal systems in contrast to the German legal system, e.g. in connection with questions regarding the possibility of proxy voting or in connection with various minimum/maximum voting ages. In addition to questions of substantive law, the various legal remedies available in the German legal system for contesting elections or the right to vote should also be discussed. Finally, an outlook should be given on possible technical possibilities (e.g. via legal tech tools) of democratic participation, as well as in connection with demoscopic, sociological and psychological questions. At the end of the last double lesson, the topics were then assigned, such as
- The right to vote in antiquity
- The development of voting rights in modern times (from three-class voting rights to voting rights from birth?)
- Comparative presentation of European, Bundestag, Bavarian state parliament and local elections using the example of BVerfG of 15.4.2019 – 2 BvQ 22/19
- Legal remedies in European, Bundestag, Bavarian state parliament and municipal elections in comparative presentation
- Comparative legal studies on voting age restrictions in various legal systems
- Comparative legal studies on the possibility of substitution in the exercise of the right to vote in different legal systems
- Article 7 of the Bavarian Constitution and minimum age for basic rights and the right to vote
- How is the count carried out in Bundestag elections? – Differences between the D’Hondt, Hare Niemeyer and Sainte-Laguë methods (counting and success value, overhang mandates, reforms)
- Right to vote from birth and election to the German Bundestag
- Sociological and demoscopic issues in the discussion about the right to vote from birth and lowering the voting age
- The influence of technology (e.g. (social) bots) on the formation of political opinion/the election campaign/the election result – USA? Fukushima?
- Use of modern technology (legal tech?) for surveys and political participation
You can find the videos of the course here.
You can find the slides for the course here.
Conference “Digitalization of civil procedure and law enforcement”
On 1 and 2 July 2021, the conference “Digitalization of Civil Procedure and Law Enforcement” – hosted by Prof. Dr. Axel Adrian and Dr. Martin Zwickel – took place at FAU.
You can find the program here. In five parts, the conference dealt with central issues of the digitization of civil procedure and law enforcement and was intended to expand the already intensive discussions of the ideas presented in the discussion paper of the working group on the modernization of civil procedure in several respects: The legal issues were supplemented by the expertise of computer scientists and discussed from a joint perspective. At appropriate points, a practical/interdisciplinary consideration or expansion of the working group’s proposals took place, e.g. by involving communication psychologists, bailiffs and those involved in consensual dispute resolution. A look at similar systems to be discussed for the judiciary, such as the automatic checking of income tax returns and the forthcoming online formation of limited liability companies, can also be helpful in questions relating to the digitalization of the judiciary. Foreign legal systems often offer a wealth of illustrative material on individual issues relating to the digitalization of civil proceedings. Even if a direct adoption of foreign legal institutions often comes up against limits, comparative legal experience reports should not be ignored.
You can find my summary of the conference here.
The videos of the conference can be found here.
WS 2020/21
Pro-/seminar
The pro-/seminar took place as a Zoom meeting.
The course dealt with topics such as whether the concept of argument can be defined at all, whether criteria for “valid” arguments can be defined, whether “convincing” arguments can be distinguished from merely “persuasive” arguments, etc. Finally, philosophical references, e.g. to the philosophy of science and epistemology, were also pointed out. How, for example, have the criteria of scientific testability changed, starting from intuition, through verification and falsification, to the question of the rationality of arguments? At the end, references to symbolic AI and the question of the possibility of representing legal arguments with machines were also discussed.
The videos of the 4 double lessons can be found here.
You can find the slides for the course here.
SS 2020
The lecture “AI and legal decision-making” took place as a Zoom meeting. The guest speakers were:
- Martin Kurtze, Siemens AG
- Hubertus Rust, Bavarian State Office for Taxes
- Dr. Tobias Wagner, DATEV eG
The videos of the 12 double hours of the event can be found here.
The slides of the event can be found here.
WS 2019/20
The slides of the event can be found here.
SS 2019