Law and Technology LLM

Program Overview

The University of Westminster's Law and Technology LLM is a comprehensive program that delves into the intertwined relationship between law and technology. It equips students with the knowledge and skills to navigate legal landscapes shaped by rapid technological advancements, critically analyze the impact of technology on society, and engage with emerging normativities at the intersection of these fields. The program offers a range of core and option modules, providing students with a deep understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks governing new technologies and empowering them to pursue careers in legal tech-related areas, the civil service, or further academic research.

Program Outline

The program aims to equip students with the essential knowledge and skills to navigate complex legal landscapes arising from rapid technological progress.

Objectives:

• Examine how technological advancements reshape legal and regulatory frameworks.
• Critically analyze the impact of technology on society, the economy, ethics, and technology itself.
• Immerse students in emerging normativities at the intersection of law and technology.
• Provide students with the essential knowledge and skills to navigate complex legal landscapes arising from rapid technological progress.
• Engage with political, social, economic, and technical perspectives related to how law captures and makes use of changes in technology and scientific knowledge.
• Offer opportunities to critically evaluate ethical and responsible innovation and progress.
• Equip students with critical analytical and research skills applicable within the profession and beyond.

Outline:

Program Structure:

• Full-time postgraduate students study 180 credits per year, consisting of three core modules worth 100 credits and four 20-credit option modules.

Core Modules:

• Law and Digital Disruption: This module maps the landscape of digital disruption and explores how digital technologies affect the legal and regulatory landscape in several domains.
It addresses questions of law, regulation, and normativity, and explores the legal, social, ethical, and economic dimensions of innovation. The module also considers the effects of these technologies on privacy, data protection, social justice, trade, governance, and more.
• Law and Governance of Technological Risk: This module examines the emerging opportunities and the risks posed by new digital technologies in the public and private sectors.
It explores the legal and regulatory frameworks governing the development of new technologies and explores the field of socially and ethically responsible innovation. The module outlines the practical approaches that all organizations must or can adopt to ensure regulatory compliance and an adequate protection of fundamental rights.
• Dissertation Project in Law and Technology: The Dissertation module gives students an opportunity to engage in independent research in a topic of their choice within the range of subject matter studied within other modules on the LLM in Law and Technology.
Students can choose to undertake a ‘traditional’ dissertation or take a project-based approach to the development of a speculative solution to a legal problem.

Option Modules:

• Law and Technoscientific Expertise: This module explores how technoscientific developments and the proliferation of expert voices in a variety of fields pose significant regulatory questions to legislatures and are captured by law.
It explores a number of examples of how the interventions of those with technoscientific expertise in particular fields is governed and responded to through policy and regulation. Students will critically evaluate the extent to which antagonistic interests – such as those informing the technology and innovation demands of the data-driven society, the need to protect the fundamental right to data protection and privacy, as well as other legal rights – are addressed and reconciled. It delves into concepts such as network states, the emergence of startup cities, the intricacies of jurisdictional design, innovative ReFi (regenerative finance) models, the functioning of DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations), the emergence of blockchain-based climate commons, and the dynamics within metaverse communities.
• Global Data Flows: Law and Innovation: This module explores the landscape of policies and regulations concerning cross-border data flows and the challenges related to data privacy protection, law enforcement, and digital industrial policies.
• International Space Law and Technology: This module maps the landscape of international and regional space law and engages with the disruption generated by new technologies and by new practices in this field of law, including the challenges and opportunities presented by privatisation of space-based activities.
• Entertainment and Media Law and Practice: This module considers the relevant law and practice within the creative industry sectors such as literary publishing, music, advertising, sports, film and TV, sports, and the media.
• Intellectual Property: This module analyses commercial Intellectual Property rights in an international context, with a particular focus on challenges to IP in the new online environment.
• Law and Media: Content and Control: This module will analyse aspects of the regulation of content and control of various elements of the media.
• Law of Digital Entertainment and Social Media: This module considers how law and technology has created and influenced law in relation to the digital entertainment business including the creation and distribution of products.

Assessment:

• The program includes a variety of assessments, which typically fall into two broad categories:
• Practical: examples include presentations, podcasts, blogs
• Coursework: examples include essays, in-class tests, portfolios, dissertation

Teaching:

• Teaching methods across all postgraduate courses focus on active student learning through lectures, seminars, workshops, problem-based and blended learning, and where appropriate practical application.
• Learning typically falls into two broad categories:
• Scheduled hours: examples include lectures, seminars, practical classes, workshops, supervised time in a studio
• Independent study: non-scheduled time in which students are expected to study independently.
This may include preparation for scheduled sessions, dissertation/final project research, follow-up work, wider reading or practice, completion of assessment tasks, or revision

Careers:

• The Law and Technology LLM will enhance students' employability prospects in legal tech-related areas, such as those concerning legal practice and innovation, legal ethics, legal and public policy research, and compliance and regulation.
• It also provides good grounding for roles in sectors such as the civil service, charitable work, and social advocacy.

Other:

• The program is taught by leading academics and professionals in the field of law and technology.
• The course is taught through small group teaching, one-to-one mentoring, collaborative and solo work, leading to greater individual focus.
• The program is designed to embed professional skills in students, such as delivering presentations, project planning, entrepreneurial and commercial awareness, and more.
• Regular tutor moderation, engagement with student reflections, and Q&A sessions will help students become effective problem-solvers.

This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.