IE University Announces IE Lawtomation Days 2026 on Redesigning Law in the AI Age and Opens Call for Academic Papers

IE University has opened a call for papers for the fifth edition of IE Lawtomation for scholars, practitioners and policymakers. The event will take place on September 24-25 at IE Tower in Madrid. The IE Lawtomation Days are organised by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for Law and Automation at IE Law School. 

This year’s theme "Redesigning Law in the AI Age: From Legacy to Legitimacy" reflects a moment of genuine inflection. Law is no longer simply catching up with technology. It is being tested by it. Norms are being translated into standards, operationalized through compliance frameworks, litigated before courts and embedded in technical and organizational architectures. The question is no longer only how much law is needed, but whether better-designed and more effectively enforced law can achieve more.

The regulatory wave of the early 2020s is giving way to something more difficult: implementation, recalibration and the pressure to simplify without hollowing out rights. Algorithmic management is reshaping work. Content moderation is exposing the limits of scale. Semi-autonomous weapons are blurring accountability. Supply chains and critical infrastructures are caught in geopolitical rivalry. And AI continues to act as a stress test for legal theories and practices that were designed for slower, more predictable environments.

Call for Papers

The organizing committee of IE Lawtomation 2026 invites scholars, researchers, practitioners and experts worldwide. Submissions are open until June 15 via the dedicated online form. The full call for submission is available here.

Convenors welcome individual abstracts (up to 500 words) and fully formed panel proposals (four to five presentations, with a 500-word panel description and confirmed participants).

The first confirmed keynote speakers: Eduard Fosch Villaronga (Leiden University), Margot Kaminski (University of Colorado), Ida Koivisto (University of Helsinki) and Thibault Schrepel (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), leading voices at the frontier of AI law, digital governance and regulatory theory.

Over five years and five editions, the IE Lawtomation Days have become what participants consistently describe as a not-to-miss gathering in the academic calendar, a permanent centre of gravity — known for the quality of contributions, the cross-generational and cross-disciplinary exchanges, and an atmosphere that is simultaneously rigorous and collegial.

This year’s partners include DigiCon, the European Law Institute (ELI) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). Previous editions have brought together scholars from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and beyond, along with practitioners, regulators and policymakers. Past keynote speakers have included experts from Oxford, EUI, the University of Chicago, Newcastle, York, Tilburg, the ILO and the European Commission.

The Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for Law and Automation (Lawtomation), co-led by Antonio Aloisi and Francesca Palmiotto (IE Law School), is a focal point of competence and knowledge on the impact of automation on the law that promotes excellence in teaching and research. The Centre develops synergies between legal experts and data scientists, in an open dialogue with policymakers, civil servants, practitioners and society at large. It also aims to generate knowledge and insights that can support policymaking.

For further details, please contact Carla.Viezma@ie.edu and Isabel.Garces@ie.edu.