JURIST is a nonprofit legal news organization powered by a global team of smart, dedicated, and public-minded volunteer law students connected for the greater good. JURIST engages law students to research and report legal news that matters, find and share primary sources, work with experts and on-the-ground observers, and explain legal developments to improve civic engagement and strengthen the rule of law.

As an extension of JURIST’s mission, we launched the JURIST Digital Scholars (JDS) Program in the summer of 2020. It aims to cultivate interdisciplinary talent at the crossroads of law, public policy, and technology.

2021 Challenge Areas

JDS is inviting project proposals – team submissions are strongly encouraged – that address an aspect of one of the following Challenge Areas:

1. Last year we saw remote technologies provide virtual access to courts worldwide when physical buildings closed. How else can we leverage technology to improve access to justice, especially for marginalized groups?
2. Big data is a double-edged sword. It improves health and safety and fuels economic growth. It also centralizes sensitive information, everything from biometric data to behavior patterns, accruing profits and power to those who control it. How do we encourage innovation while protecting privacy and preventing malfeasance?
3. Lethal autonomous weapons – combat robots able to act independently of human control – have gone from science-fiction to simpler to develop than self-driving cars. How do we keep the world safe when there is no agreement on their development or use?
4. The planet is in crisis. How can law and technology accelerate positive change and encourage a sweeping embrace of sustainability?

Proposed projects should be able to be completed in 2 months. Proposals should anticipate tangible outputs that might include articles to be published on JURIST, videos for upload, models or applications. See sample proposals on applying federated learning to build a privacy-preserving service for legal text summarization here and on measuring user understanding of privacy policies here.

Selected JURIST Digital Scholars

Selected scholars will work with mentors to refine and complete their projects between June and August 2021. Each project will receive up to $2000 in research funding and the opportunity to publish their work, in whole or in part, and share their insights with scholars and practitioners of law, technology and public policy.

What makes me qualified?

• Being curious, open-minded, self-driven, and creative!
• A passion for law, technology, public policy and contributing to the greater good
• Technical expertise or experience in the area you propose to explore is a plus, you may be at the undergraduate or graduate level or in-between programs
• Good writing skills

To apply, send your proposal and the resume of each team member to JDS Program Director Ruth Wang at jds@jurist.org. Applications submitted by May 23 will receive priority.

Questions? Reach out to JDS Program Director Ruth Wang at jds@jurist.org.