Law, Society, Technology and Legal Informatics (Management and Law)

Sylabus

This course examines how law responds to technological and social change and equips law students to find, evaluate and use legal information in a digital environment. It combines socio-legal analysis, regulatory governance and digital humanism with practical training in European legal information systems, academic research and the responsible use of artificial intelligence in legal work. 

Course rationale 

Lawyers increasingly work in environments shaped by digital platforms, automated systems and data-intensive decision-making. They must understand how technology changes conduct and institutions, how regulatory choices affect innovation and fundamental rights, and how authoritative legal information can be retrieved and verified. The course therefore connects conceptual analysis with practical research and case-solving skills. 

The first six weeks develop a framework for analysing sociotechnical change and regulatory intervention. Weeks seven to twelve develop legal informatics, research and AI-assisted legal work. The final week assesses whether students can combine these competences in an individual practical exercise. 

Topics and Readings

Week 1  Law Technology Innovation and Society 

Purpose: Introduce the course vocabulary and show that technology develops within social, economic and institutional contexts. 

Content 

• Stages of technological and sociotechnical change. 

• Technological determinism and the social construction of technology. 

• Technology as an object and an instrument of regulation. 

• Law, markets, social norms and architecture or code as modalities of regulation. 

• Introduction to the TechReg model and the distinction between technological novelty and a justification for intervention. 

Required preparation 

• Ronald Leenes, Regulating the New, Regulation, Ethics, Acceptance and Legitimacy 

• in the governance of technology, Chapter 1. Available at: https://openpress.tilburguniversity.edu/projects/regulating-the-new.    

• Lawrence Lessig, The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, https://cyber.harvard.edu/works/lessig/finalhls.pdf  

Recommended reading 

• Joel R Reidenberg, Lex Informatica The Formulation of Information Policy Rules through Technology, 76 Texas Law Review 553 (1998). 

Week 2  Digital Humanism 

Purpose: Examine how human dignity, agency, democracy and inclusion can guide the design and regulation of digital technologies. 

Content 

• Origins and principal claims of digital humanism. 

• Human dignity, autonomy, agency, equality, pluralism and democratic participation. 

• Technological mediation and the distribution of benefits, risks and power. 

• Translation of human-centred values into legal, organisational and design requirements. 

Required preparation 

• Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism 2019. Available at: https://caiml.org/dighum/dighum-manifesto/.  

• Erich Prem, Principles of Digital Humanism A Critical Post-Humanist View, Journal of Responsible Technology 17 2024, 100075. 

 Recommended reading 

• Hannes Werthner and others, Digital Humanism The Time Is Now, Computer 56(1) 2023, 138 to 142. 

• Mesarčík, M., Slosiarová, N. (2026). Between Principle and Practice: Evaluating the EU AI Act Through the Lens of Digital Humanism. In: Hagedorn, L., Schmid, U., Winter, S., Woltran, S. (eds) Digital Humanism. DIGHUM 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 16319. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-11108-1_23 

Week 3  Regulation of Emerging Technologies 

Purpose: Develop a structured method for analysing technology-related regulatory problems, determining whether intervention is justified and selecting an appropriate regulatory response. 

Content 

• From technological novelty to a regulatory problem: identifying the relevant sociotechnical change and the regulatory target – technology, application, conduct, actor or context of use. 

• Regulators, regulatees, affected stakeholders, interests and regulatory objectives. 

• Problem framing, existing law and regulatory gaps, including legal lacunae, normative disconnects, lack of enforcement and unintended effects. 

• Regulatory response options: non-intervention; interpretation, application or improved enforcement of existing law; amendment or new regulation; and experimental or adaptive approaches. 

• Justifications and constraints on intervention: public interest, fundamental rights, market failure, risk, proportionality and innovation. 

• Innovation governance under uncertainty: the precautionary principle, permissionless innovation, responsible innovation and the innovation principle. 

• Regulatory design: normative forms (rules, principles and standards) and regulatory modalities (the eight Cs of control – command, competition, consensus, communication, contract, claims, code and compensation). 

• Experimental and adaptive regulation: regulatory sandboxes, monitoring, evaluation, reversibility and learning from real-world deployment. 

Required preparation 

• Ronald Leenes, Regulating the New: Regulation, Ethics, Acceptance and Legitimacy in the Governance of Technology (Open Press Tilburg University 2026), Chapter 1, section 1.5 (TechReg model – review), and Chapter 9, selected sections 9.2–9.3 on rules, principles, standards and regulatory modalities. https://doi.org/10.56675/rtn1. 

Recommended reading 

• Lyria Bennett Moses, How to Think about Law, Regulation and Technology: Problems with “Technology” as a Regulatory Target, Law, Innovation and Technology 5(1) (2013), 1–20. 

• Gary E Marchant, The Growing Gap Between Emerging Technologies and the Law (2011). 

• Sofia Ranchordás, Experimental Regulations and Regulatory Sandboxes: Law without Order? University of Groningen Faculty of Law Research Paper No 10/2021. 

Week 4  New Technologies and the Information Ecosystem 

Purpose: Explain how information is created and disseminated through new technologies, analyse the role of algorithms in filtering and prioritising content, and critically assess the responsibilities of online platforms and the state in relation to content moderation, freedom of expression and democratic resilience. 

Content  

• Information, misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. 

• Mechanisms through which false and misleading information is disseminated using information technologies. 

• Principles of content moderation under European and Slovak law. 

• Responsibilities of online platforms and the state in relation to content moderation. 

• Risks posed by new technologies to society, democracy and the rule of law, including polarisation, manipulation and restrictions on freedom of expression. 

• Balancing freedom of expression, the right to receive information and platform responsibility in preventing the dissemination of false and misleading information. 

Required preparation 

• WARDLE, Claire – DERAKHSHAN, Hossein. Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2017. Selected sections on misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. 

• MURRAY, Andrew. Information Technology Law: The Law and Society. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. Selected chapters on regulating the information society, online speech and social media. 

Recommended reading  

• LESSIG, Lawrence. Code: Version 2.0. New York: Basic Books, 2006. Selected chapters on regulation through law and technological architecture. 

• MOSES, Lyria Bennett. How to Think about Law, Regulation and Technology: Problems with “Technology” as a Regulatory Target. Law, Innovation and Technology. 2013, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1–20. 

Week 5  Generative Artificial Intelligence Challenges and Problematic Aspects 

Content 

• Generative artificial intelligence, large language models, neural networks and the basic principles of their operation. 

• Differences between generative AI and other types of artificial intelligence. 

• Power asymmetries in the development of generative AI, including market concentration, access to data and commercial and geopolitical interests. 

• Societal risks, including disinformation, deepfakes, manipulation and effects on the labour market. 

• Ethical issues relating to originality, transparency, trust, dependency and misuse. 

• Responsibility for content generated by AI. 

• Use of online data for training generative AI and its implications for copyright. 

• Risks to privacy, personal data and other fundamental rights. 

• The possibilities and limitations of regulating generative AI. 

Required preparation  

• MIAO, Fengchun – HOLMES, Wayne. Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research. Paris: UNESCO, 2023. Selected sections explaining generative AI and its ethical and societal implications. 

• EUROPEAN COMMISSION. AI Act: Regulatory Framework for Artificial Intelligence. Selected sections on transparency obligations, generative AI and general-purpose AI models.  

Recommended reading

• SURDEN, Harry. Artificial Intelligence and Law: An Overview. Georgia State University Law Review. 2019, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 1305–1337. 

• EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Living Guidelines on the Responsible Use of Generative AI in Research. 3rd version. Brussels: European Commission, 2026. Available online 

Week 6  Model Case Study Applying Acquired Knowledge 

Continous Assessment I

Week 7  European Legal Information System EUR-Lex 

 Content 

• Document types and the structure of EUR-Lex. 

• Simple and advanced search and the use of filters. 

• CELEX and ELI identifiers. 

• Official Journal texts, consolidated versions, corrigenda and amendments. 

• Preparatory documents, legal bases, related case law and national transposition measures. 

• Verification of status, relevant dates and language versions. 

Required preparation 

• Videos on using eur lex:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zQo0BksM6Q

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3MWwONb8Ck&t=5s

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_NmB39G2QM

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJvSN40nSM&t=12s

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPw88YUPOoo&t=12s

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCSWy8hsT-8

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2rHO3W3ac4

Week 8  Legal Information Systems HUDOC and CURIA 

Content 

• Differences between the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. 

• Application numbers, case numbers and ECLI identifiers. 

• Judgments, decisions, orders, Advocate General opinions and other document types. 

• Search filters, procedural status, language versions and paragraph-level citation. 

• Assessment of relevance, authority and subsequent procedural developments. 

Required preparation 

• Ovádek, M. (2024) ‘A note of caution on CJEU databases’, European Law Open, 3(2), pp. 353–359. doi:10.1017/elo.2024.17. 

• Finding and understanding the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe. Available at: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/clip_finding_understanding_case_law_eng 

• HUDOC-ECHR FAQ – Frequently asked questions. Available at: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/hudoc_faq_eng. 

• New InfoCuria case-law database and search tool. Available at: https://curia.europa.eu/site/jcms/p1_1000063986/en/new-infocuria-case-law-database-and-search-tool. 

• Following a case: what information is publicly accessible? Available at: https://curia.europa.eu/site/jcms/d2_5106/en/case-tracking-publicly-available-information.  

Week 9  Searching for Academic and Scientific Literature 

Content 

• Conversion of a research question into concepts, synonyms and search strings. 

• Boolean operators, phrase searching, truncation and database filters. 

• Scopus, Web of Science, HeinOnline, Google Scholar and publisher databases. 

• Backward and forward citation searching. 

• Peer review, DOI, ORCID, journal quality and predatory publishing. 

• Reference management and reproducible search logs. 

Required preparation 

• Chigbu, U. E., Atiku, S. O., & Du Plessis, C. C. (2023). The Science of Literature Reviews: Searching, Identifying, Selecting, and Synthesising. Publications, 11(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11010002  

Week 10  Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Professions 

Content 

• AI in client intake, legal research, document review, drafting, translation, litigation analytics and judicial administration. 

• Professional competence, independence and responsibility. 

• Client confidentiality, legal professional privilege and data protection. 

• Bias, discrimination, explainability, source quality and human supervision. 

• Vendor selection, procurement, security and organisational governance. 

• AI literacy and the treatment of certain justice-related AI systems under the AI Act. 

Required preparation 

• Marjan Ajevski, Kim Barker, Andrew Gilbert, Liz Hardie & Francine Ryan (2023) ChatGPT and the future of legal education and practice, The Law Teacher, 57:3, 352-364, DOI: 10.1080/03069400.2023.2207426 

•  Fershée, J.: Reimagining Legal Education: The Role and Purpose of Law Schools in Modern Society - A Values-Driven Approach to Modern Legal Education. Available at: https://access.heinonline.com/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/utol57&div=17&id=&page=  

Week 11  Practical Use of Artificial Intelligence in Case Studies 

Content 

• Identification of relevant facts, legal issues and required authoritative sources before using AI. 

• Assessment of whether an AI tool is appropriate for the task and what information may safely be provided to it, including confidentiality and personal-data considerations. 

• Different modes of AI-assisted legal work, including open prompting and source-grounded analysis. 

• Distinguishing source discovery from source verification and identifying the authoritative version of a legal source. 

• Selection and prioritisation of authoritative legal sources for verification. 

• Treatment of AI-generated references and citations as research leads rather than verified legal authorities. 

• Verification of every legal authority, quotation, factual claim and citation against authoritative sources, including jurisdiction, temporal validity, legal status and procedural context. 

• Claim-source tables and identification of fabricated, unsupported, outdated, misleading and materially incomplete AI-generated legal claims, including omissions of relevant rules, exceptions or counterarguments. 

• Use of AI to identify counterarguments, alternative interpretations and weaknesses in legal reasoning, including red-team review. 

• Preparation and refinement of an IRAC or CREAC analysis using AI as an assistive rather than authoritative source. 

• Documentation and disclosure of relevant AI assistance, including the purpose of its use and the verification performed, while retaining human responsibility for the final legal analysis. 

Required preparation 

• Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), Guide on the Use of Generative AI by Lawyers, 2 October 2025, Executive Summary and selected sections 3.3 and 4.1–4.4. Available at: CCBE. 

Recommended reading 

• Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), Technical Guide on the Use of AI Tools and Models by Lawyers, Edition 2026, 27 March 2026. Available at: CCBE. 

• European Commission, Living Guidelines on the Responsible Use of Generative AI in Research, 3rd ed., May 2026. Available at: European Commission. 

Week 12  Continuous Assessment II

Information on the Requirements for Completing the Course

Information pursuant to Article 11, paragraph 4, of the Study Regulations of Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Law, for all groups of faculty members:

doc. JUDr. Jozef Andraško, PhD.

doc. JUDr. Soňa Sopúchová, PhD.

doc. JUDr. Matúš Mesarčík, PhD., LL.M.

doc. JUDr. Zoltán Gyurász, PhD.

Mgr. Petra Dražová, PhD.

JUDr. Marek Adamkovič, PhD.

Mgr. Soňa Juhásová

Mgr. Stela Košťálová

Mgr. Miroslav Sorkovský

Mgr. Lucia Rybanová

Mgr. Viktória Virágová

I.            Semester/Academic Year: Winter, 2026/2027

II.          Study Programme/Degree/Form: Law and Management, Law and International Law/bachelor/full-time

III.        Name: Law, Society, Technology and Legal Informatics

IV.         Scope of Mandatory Participation in Educational Activities

V. Conditions under which a student may make up missed seminars:

VI. Specification of the method for evaluating academic performance, including the method and conditions for taking make-up exams for formative assessment:

VII. Dates of midterm evaluations; topics covered in each midterm evaluation

a)      Continous Assessment

Written Assignment - 3.11

Search Legal Informatics System - 15.12

15.12-19.12

b)      Topics of Assessment: Availalbe above on the web page.

VIII. Information on alternative options for fulfilling the requirements of the midterm evaluation, which, however, do not constitute a general make-up period for the midterm evaluation pursuant to Article 13(4) of the Faculty’s Study Regulations;

Alternative dates for the midterm assessment will be scheduled only for students who did not attend the regular midterm assessment and who can demonstrate that they were unable to participate in this form of assessment for objective and compelling reasons.

IX. Information on whether passing the exam requires achieving a specified level of ongoing assessment or meeting a specified requirement for mandatory participation in educational activities

a)      If a student misses more than three seminars, he or she will not be graded for the course and will not be eligible to take the midterm exam (the student will be ungraded—“X”).

X. Additional Information

 

In Bratislava, 19.09.2026

doc. JUDr. Jozef Andraško, PhD.