Initiatives
The Duke Center on Law & Technology coordinates many of Duke’s leadership activities in legal technology; our initiatives aim to understand, re-imagine, shape, and lead the next generation of tech-enabled legal practice and to employ the tools of the law to ensure that rapidly emerging technologies empower and ennoble people.
Active Programs & Projects
The mission of the Digital Governance Design Studio (DGDS) is to empower law students and lawyers to help "technology second" organizations adapt to a digitizing world.
DGDS incubates experiential, interdisciplinary projects that bridge the gap between academia and practice. We collaborate with outside partners to research, develop, and evaluate trustworthy digital governance. We support the next generation of data stewards through experiential classes and training materials. And we develop tools and infrastructure to help communities navigate the uncertainties of a digitizing world.
Duke Law By Design is an initiative to bring human-centered design principles and practices into the law school.
A group of faculty and staff have completed training through IDEO U about design thinking, and are engaging student, staff, and faculty in human-centered design processes with stakeholders, other service professionals, and partner organizations from the community.
Topics have included eviction procedures in Durham, imagine measurements of project and attorney success beyond the billable hour, access to justice, improving forensic reports, and serving human trafficking survivors, and others.
Design thinking for law is a process of experiencing knowledge and exploring the human mind’s ‘playground of ideas'.
Design thinking helps us to change the law for the better by…
- Asking participants to take on a beginner’s mindset
- Looking beyond the borders of the “law” as currently defined
- Stripping away the fear of making mistakes
- Teaching creativity and prototyping as core skill sets
Legal Design Derby
In teams of three or four, law students used human-centered design principles to develop, refine, and present a prototype answering a focused "How Might We" question for each event.
- Access to Justice (Fall 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023)
- Future of Contracts (Spring 2023 and 2024)
Faculty and staff may bring the Future of Contracts Design Derby to their students by adapting our open-source curriculum.
Latest News
- N.C. law students pitch access to justice solutions at Legal Design Derby
- Students from seven law schools participate in 2023 Future of Contracts Design Derby
- Students from five N.C. law schools team up for human centered design challenge
- NCCU Law Participates In 2022 Legal Design Derby
- NCCU Law Students Yield Top Prize During Legal Competition
- Students flex entrepreneurial muscles at Legal Design Derby
Responsible AI in Legal Services (RAILS) brings together a broad group of industry leaders to support the ethical use of AI in legal services.
In addition to increasing the general understanding of AI by identifying gaps in current research and areas that need further exploration, RAILS will develop guidelines and best practices and work to educate legal professionals. These guidelines will address key issues such as client confidentiality, unbiased decision-making, transparency, accountability, and more. To ensure these guidelines are practical and universally applicable, RAILS will actively seek input and feedback from a diverse range of legal professionals and technologists. Once tangible and workable solutions are identified, RAILS will create educational and training resources to help legal professionals understand AI tools, their potential applications in legal services, and the ethical considerations surrounding their use.
We support and advise student groups and initiatives engaged with issues of law & technology.
The Duke Law & Technology Society is a student-run organization which seeks to create a forum where like-minded students interested in the intersection of law and technology can share their ideas and satisfy their intellectual curiosity through peer (to-peer) instruction.
The Duke Law & Tech Review is an online legal publication that focuses on the evolving intersection of law and technology. DLTR has adopted the Principles of the Science Commons Open Access Law Program.
Ethical Tech started as a student group, co-founded by DCLT Fellows. It is a nonpartisan initiative focusing on research, education, and policy development.
Access Tech Tools
The Duke Center on Law & Technology's Access Tech Tools Initiative includes incorporating technology into access to justice programs, integrating design thinking processes into academic courses and community workshops, and supporting scholarship on these topics.
Our faculty, staff, and research assistants partner with Duke Legal Clinics and technologists in tech-development projects that aim expressly at expanding access to legal services and increasing efficiency at the Law School.
Data Governance Design Conference & Research Network
The Data Governance Design Conference (DGDC), held in November 2019, convened policymakers, industry, academia, and legal practitioners to explore models, needs, and enabling environment for data governance. The DGDC featured expert-level content, for a select audience of data governance leaders, toward establishing a practice-led research agenda that unlocks the field’s tremendous potential.
As an outcome of the conference, a new collaborative research network on data governance was created, involving the Duke Center on Law & Tech, Indiana University’s Ostrom Workshop, The University of Western Australia, and the Digital Civil Society Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Read more.
Law +Data Science
In connection with the Duke +Data Science initiative, research assistants and faculty with the Duke Center on Law & Technology are current developing training modules and learning experiences which involve specialized content on the intersection between law and data science.
Duke LawNext (Summer 2020)
Duke LawNext is a set of curated, remote, self-directed enrichment opportunities for Duke Law students and recent alumni to explore next-generation legal practice. Launched in summer 2020, this program helps participants explore the ways that both legal practitioners and the world in which they are situated are changing on account of emerging technologies. Participants will choose from these Pathways:
- Tomorrow’s Digital Lawyer - Exploring shifts in the delivery of legal services driven by digital technologies
- Legal Design, Innovation, & A2J - Applying design & tech to enhance access to legal services & solve entrenched social problems
- Lawyering in the Age of AI - Confronting our increasing embeddedness in a world of big data & artificial intelligence
By completing Pathway Foundations (core materials), engaging with Enrichment Windows, and completing a demonstration project, participants will be eligible to add a designated notation to their CV/résumé.
Past Events
We coordinate and support interdisciplinary events at Duke Law and across campus on emerging issues and technologies. We partner with other departments such as Duke Science & Society, Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Innovation Co-Lab, Duke Pratt School of Engineering, Duke Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke Law Start-Up Ventures Clinic, student groups like Duke Law & Technology Society and Ethical Tech, and external groups like Triangle Privacy Research Hub (TPRH).
Learn more about some of our recent past events:
Tech Trust Podcast
Tech Trust explores the challenges of ensuring trust in an increasingly digital age.
Risk Some, Risk All: COVID, Public Health, & Undocumented Immigrants
October 14, 2020
20:14
In Episode 1, we look at trust among vulnerable populations in the times of coronavirus, specifically how public health data surveillance in the times of COVID affects undocumented immigrants. Host Jeff Ward is joined by Emma Ritter, a student at Duke Law and Andrea Rojas Rozo, a Fulbright Scholar from Colombia and Fellow with the Duke Center on Law & Tech, both of whom were part of a research team aiming to better understand the needs of some communities left out of primary public discussions on pandemic response.
Fishing for Data Podcast
Fishing for Data is a four-part podcast series that explores the governance of fisheries data under the Magnuson-Stevens Act & related data laws & policies. This podcast aims to mediate a dialogue among various stakeholders on key issues related to the future of electronic monitoring in fisheries management. The series was produced in May and June 2021.
Fishing for Data was produced by a legal, policy, and environmental science team of fellows from the Duke Center on Law & Tech and sponsored by the Net Gains Alliance, a nonprofit global initiative dedicated to better information for better oceans.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Duke Law Tech Lab
Working with early stage companies with a legal tech product and a mission to increase access to legal services, the Duke Law Tech Lab built community, connected companies with valuable partners and mentors, and supported company growth through a three month remote program, culminating in a Demo Day where companies compete for prize money.
The program was paused in 2022 and 2023 in order to conduct research on justice tech - read our findings now.
Access Tech Tools
The Duke Center on Law & Technology's Access Tech Tools Initiative includes incorporating technology into access to justice programs, integrating design thinking processes into academic courses and community workshops, and supporting scholarship on these topics.
Our faculty, staff, and research assistants partner with Duke Legal Clinics and technologists in tech-development projects that aim expressly at expanding access to legal services and increasing efficiency at the Law School.
Data Governance Design Conference & Research Network
The Data Governance Design Conference (DGDC), held in November 2019, convened policymakers, industry, academia, and legal practitioners to explore models, needs, and enabling environment for data governance. The DGDC featured expert-level content, for a select audience of data governance leaders, toward establishing a practice-led research agenda that unlocks the field’s tremendous potential.
As an outcome of the conference, a new collaborative research network on data governance was created, involving the Duke Center on Law & Tech, Indiana University’s Ostrom Workshop, The University of Western Australia, and the Digital Civil Society Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Read more.
Law +Data Science
In connection with the Duke +Data Science initiative, research assistants and faculty with the Duke Center on Law & Technology are current developing training modules and learning experiences which involve specialized content on the intersection between law and data science.
Duke LawNext (Summer 2020)
Duke LawNext is a set of curated, remote, self-directed enrichment opportunities for Duke Law students and recent alumni to explore next-generation legal practice. Launched in summer 2020, this program helps participants explore the ways that both legal practitioners and the world in which they are situated are changing on account of emerging technologies. Participants will choose from these Pathways:
- Tomorrow’s Digital Lawyer - Exploring shifts in the delivery of legal services driven by digital technologies
- Legal Design, Innovation, & A2J - Applying design & tech to enhance access to legal services & solve entrenched social problems
- Lawyering in the Age of AI - Confronting our increasing embeddedness in a world of big data & artificial intelligence
By completing Pathway Foundations (core materials), engaging with Enrichment Windows, and completing a demonstration project, participants will be eligible to add a designated notation to their CV/résumé.
Past Events
We coordinate and support interdisciplinary events at Duke Law and across campus on emerging issues and technologies. We partner with other departments such as Duke Science & Society, Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Innovation Co-Lab, Duke Pratt School of Engineering, Duke Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke Law Start-Up Ventures Clinic, student groups like Duke Law & Technology Society and Ethical Tech, and external groups like Triangle Privacy Research Hub (TPRH).
Learn more about some of our recent past events:
Tech Trust Podcast
Tech Trust explores the challenges of ensuring trust in an increasingly digital age.
Risk Some, Risk All: COVID, Public Health, & Undocumented Immigrants
October 14, 2020
20:14
In Episode 1, we look at trust among vulnerable populations in the times of coronavirus, specifically how public health data surveillance in the times of COVID affects undocumented immigrants. Host Jeff Ward is joined by Emma Ritter, a student at Duke Law and Andrea Rojas Rozo, a Fulbright Scholar from Colombia and Fellow with the Duke Center on Law & Tech, both of whom were part of a research team aiming to better understand the needs of some communities left out of primary public discussions on pandemic response.
Fishing for Data Podcast
Fishing for Data is a four-part podcast series that explores the governance of fisheries data under the Magnuson-Stevens Act & related data laws & policies. This podcast aims to mediate a dialogue among various stakeholders on key issues related to the future of electronic monitoring in fisheries management. The series was produced in May and June 2021.
Fishing for Data was produced by a legal, policy, and environmental science team of fellows from the Duke Center on Law & Tech and sponsored by the Net Gains Alliance, a nonprofit global initiative dedicated to better information for better oceans.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Duke Law Tech Lab
Working with early stage companies with a legal tech product and a mission to increase access to legal services, the Duke Law Tech Lab built community, connected companies with valuable partners and mentors, and supported company growth through a three month remote program, culminating in a Demo Day where companies compete for prize money.
The program was paused in 2022 and 2023 in order to conduct research on justice tech - read our findings now.
