Data Science for Case Law: A Course Collaboration | Library Innovation Lab

We just wrapped up a unique, semester-long collaboration between the Library and the data science program at SEAS.

This semester Jack Cushman and I joined the instructors of Advanced Topics in Data Science (CS109b) to lead a course module called Data Science for Case Law. Working closely with instructors, we challenged the students by asking them to apply data science methods to generate case summaries (aka “headnotes”) with cases from CAP.

The course partnered with schools across campus to create six course modules, from predicting how disease spreads with machine learning, to understanding what galaxies look like using neural networks. We introduced our module by reviewing and discussing a case, and framed our goal around the need for freely available case summaries.

This challenge was a highlight of the semester. Students presented their work at the end of the term, which included multiple approaches to creating case summaries – like supervised and unsupervised models for machine learning and more.

We’re looking forward to new collaborations in the future, and want to hear from you. Have ideas? Let’s talk!