Bridging the Computer Science -- Law Divide: Recommendations from the Front Lines

Abstract

Many pressing societal questions can be answered only by bringing experts from different disciplines together. Questions around misinformation and disinformation, platform power, surveillance capitalism, information privacy, and algorithmic bias, among many others, reside at the intersection of computer science and law. We need to develop institutions that bring together computer scientists and legal scholars to work together on issues like these, and to train new innovators, thought leaders, counselors, and policymakers with hybrid training in both disciplines. In Universities, the disciplines of Computer Science (CS) and Law are separated by many wide chasms. Differences in standards, language, methods, and culture impede professors and other academic researchers who want to collaborate with colleagues on the other side of this divide. Universities place CS and Law in different schools, on different campuses, on different calendars, etc. Researchers in the two disciplines face differing incentives and reward structures for publishing, teaching, funding, and service.