This is a 5-Day Course Designed for PhD Students and Legal Academics.
Period: August 24 – 28, 2026 (Monday – Friday)
Venue: The University of Hong Kong
課程中文資料，請按此 (Click here for course information in Chinese)
Course Overview
This five-day intensive course introduces PhD students and early career researchers in law and law-related disciplines to computational methods for legal research. Designed specifically for participants with no prior experience in computer programming, the course provides a practical and conceptually grounded introduction to how computational techniques can be used in contemporary legal scholarship.
Computational methods—such as text analysis, data collection, and visualization—are increasingly used across legal studies, socio-legal research, and interdisciplinary work that engages with courts, legislation, policy, regulation, and legal institutions. Yet many legal researchers lack structured opportunities to acquire these skills in a supportive, methodologically oriented environment. This course addresses that gap.
Lecturers:
- Ryan Whalen (Associate Professor & Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law)
- John Zhuang Liu (Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law)
The course is hosted at The University of Hong Kong and sponsored by the HKU Centre for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies. The course will be taught in English.
Aims and Learning Objectives:
By the end of the course, participants will:
• Understand how computational approaches can be integrated into doctrinal, empirical, and interdisciplinary legal research
• Gain hands-on experience with basic computational techniques commonly used in legal studies
• Develop foundational literacy in programming concepts relevant to research
• Learn to critically assess the strengths and limitations of computational methods in legal contexts
• Be equipped to begin using computational tools independently or in collaboration with other researchers
The emphasis throughout is on methodological understanding and research design, rather than technical mastery.
Course Structure and Content:
The course runs over five consecutive days and combines short lectures, guided hands-on exercises, and discussion sessions. Topics include:
• Introduction to computational legal research and research design
• Working with legal texts and documents
• Basic text analysis and legal corpus exploration
• Data collection, cleaning, and management for legal research
• Visualization and exploratory analysis for legal questions
• Reproducibility, transparency, and ethical issues in computational legal research
Practical sessions are carefully scaffolded and assume no prior coding experience. Examples and exercises are drawn from law and law-related research contexts.
Teaching Approach
The course adopts a beginner-friendly, research-led pedagogy. Technical concepts are introduced slowly and motivated by concrete legal research problems. Participants will work with real legal materials and research scenarios, allowing them to reflect on how computational methods intersect with doctrinal reasoning, qualitative interpretation, and normative analysis.
No prior programming experience is required, and no technical background is assumed.
Who Should Attend?
This course is designed for PhD students in law and law-related disciplines, early career researchers conducting legal, socio-legal, or interdisciplinary research, and researchers interested in incorporating computational methods into their work. Participants from all legal traditions and research areas are welcome.
Fees (in Hong Kong dollars):
HKU students and staff: $ 2,500
Students (non-HKU): $ 4,000
Public: $ 6,000
($500 discount for early-bird payment by June 15, 2026, Hong Kong Time)
Register for the course: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=104795. A payment link will be sent to registrants later.