For Immediate Release

Contact: Kim Eckart
UW News
(206) 616-5847
keckart@uw.edu

UW Tech Policy Lab Recognized by Bloomberg as a Top Legal Education Innovation Program

Seattle, Wash Jan 18, 2023 – The Bloomberg Law 2022 Law School Innovation Program celebrates pioneering schools making an impact on the legal field. It has named the UW Tech Policy Lab a top scoring program in the area of Law School Innovation & Experience.

The UW Tech Policy Lab is a unique, interdisciplinary collaboration that aims to enhance technology policy through research, education, and thought leadership. Founded in 2013 by faculty from the UW School of Law, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Information School, the Lab bridges the gap between technologists and policymakers to help generate wiser, more inclusive tech policy.

“Education has been part of our mission since we started. We are very pleased to see our model held up as an example to others. The Lab has been emulated by other schools over the years, but this formal recognition is exciting,” said Ryan Calo, UW Tech Policy Lab Co-Director and the Lane Powell and D. Wayne Gittinger Endowed Professor at the UW School of Law.

The Lab’s unique, interdisciplinary approach aligns with Bloomberg’s goal to recognize innovations that bring new approaches to legal education. The criteria sought programs that are original and provide innovative teaching methods and experiential learning, implement new technology or bring other new approaches to legal education.

“The students and community members who interact with the Lab come away with the understanding that collaborating and bringing a variety of perspectives together is the key to working through contemporary challenges,” said Calo. “Few consequential problems in our society can be addressed by reference to a single discipline.”

Submissions were scored based on impact on students, ability to advance the legal industry and replicability. In its submission, the UW Tech Lab demonstrated the model’s unique blend of immersive experiences, opportunities for relationship-building and interdisciplinary approaches.
It also showcased how students are encouraged to not only consider the legal and policy implications of new technologies, but also understand the technology itself in an immersive, evidence-based environment that is otherwise hard to come by in a legal education.

“Rather than try to work with every student, we offer programming open to all and work closely with a small handful of law students whom we place on interdisciplinary teams to work on consequential issues of tech policy,” Calo said. “They often go on to work in the field and get a unique perspective and experience working across disciplines.”

The goal of Bloomberg’s Law School Innovation Program is to identify, recognize, and connect law school faculty, staff, and administrators who are pioneering educational innovations that benefit their students, their schools, and the legal field. Bloomberg Law aims to combine the latest in legal tech with legal analytics, legal research tools, primary and secondary sources, news, analysis and business intelligence.

Other top scoring programs in this category include Northeastern University School of Law’s NuLawLab, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s Center for Practice Engagement and Innovation, Syracuse University College of Law’s Innovation Law Center and University of California College of the Law, San Francisco’s LexLab. This was the inaugural year of the awards.