Our Mission is to conduct empirical research on legal reasoning in substantive areas of law, using linguistic analysis, a logic-based analytic framework, and state-of-the-art technology – in order to create knowledge, skills and tools that enhance legal practice and legal education.
Our Vision is to integrate innovative empirical research on legal reasoning with the traditional educational activities of Hofstra Law School, and to create a valuable knowledge center for society through the team efforts of students and faculty, and through collaboration with other research laboratories.
Our Strategic Goal is to help increase the transparency, fairness, accuracy and efficiency of legal processes in society. We do this by using advances in logic and technology to conduct impact research in targeted areas of the law, to create products that help make legal decision-making more accurate and more efficient, and to integrate those research activities with the educational mission of the law school. This goal has three dimensions – law, logic and technology:
- Law – The possible target areas for research include legislation, administrative rules and decisions, and judicial decisions in all substantive areas of the law, either in U.S. or foreign jurisdictions, or within international law. Our methodology and the management structure of the Lab enable comparative research across legal areas and systems. We particularly target societal areas where efficiency and accuracy are of paramount importance (such as in the health care area).
- Logic – The analysis of the logical structure of reasoning provides a single, common framework for research and education across different legal systems and different languages. It also provides a common framework for integrating legal reasoning with commonsense reasoning and reasoning in other disciplines, such as science and medicine.
- Technology – The emphasis on technology – in particular, on software development and Internet-based technology – encourages the adaptation for legal research and education of tools being developed in non-legal areas, such as computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. Such tools can also make legal decision-making more accurate and more efficient. The technology also facilitates a team approach to research and a distance-education approach to legal education.
