599 Law & Technology (Raso)

LAW599

Law and Technology

(Raso)

Prerequisite courses:

Prerequisite for:

Instructor(s): Professor Jennifer Raso

Course credit: 3

Method of presentation: Seminar

METHOD OF EVALUATION

Learning will be evaluated based on four components: 

• Reading response papers (50%); 

• A public-facing team-based assignment and presentation (20%); 

• An end-of-term learning reflection (10%); and 

• In-class engagement (20%).

As the reading response papers are cumulative, students who are on the wait-list for this course are encouraged to compose papers for the first two weeks of classes and to attend these classes.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This seminar will introduce students to a range of pressing challenges (legal and ethical) raised by new technologies, and will explore how legal institutions (courts, legislatures, and executive actors) are, or could be, responding to these challenges. We will study not only how new and old technologies interact with law and legal institutions, but how technological tools generate new legal forms. Students will develop critical analysis skills that our new legal-technical world demands, and will be introduced to a rich variety of scholarship in this area, including regulation and governance literature, critical algorithm studies, and socio-legal studies.

The seminar will be organized into thematic sections centred on the dilemmas that arise when new technologies are deployed in contexts spanning both “private” and “public” law. These sections may include: digital borders (vaccine passports, eBorders); social benefits administration and debt collection (automated benefits eligibility, debtor risk profiling); worker regulation and on-demand platforms (ride-hailing and food delivery apps, Amazon warehouses); predictive policing (risk-based algorithms, facial detection and recognition); and court and tribunal administration (eCourts, digitalized tribunals). Throughout, students will learn how different areas of law approach or overlook these dilemmas, and will develop their ability to analyze and respond to these matters.

SPECIAL COMMENTS

Description updated 2021-22. Please contact the instructor for any specific questions you may have related to this particular course section.

REQUIRED TEXTS (IF ANY)

Required readings will consist of academic texts, legal documents, and other materials (i.e. blog posts, newspaper articles, podcasts, etc.). All will be available on TWEN.