Legal Data Lab Empirical Legal Research Specialist, School Of Law

The University of Virginia School of Law seeks an Empirical Legal Data Specialist to support the Legal Data Lab within the Arthur J. Morris Law Library. The Legal Data Lab supports empirical legal scholarship at the University of Virginia School of Law. One of the first labs of its kind, the Lab uses data science solutions to help patrons better understand and explain complex legal phenomena.

The Law School is consistently recognized as one of the top law schools in the country, and the Law Library is critical to its mission and culture. The Arthur J. Morris Law Library supports the Law School's mission of excellence in teaching, research, and publication. The environment at the Law School is both active and supportive, with a strong sense of collegiality among students, faculty, and staff and a commitment to excellence and service.

The Legal Data Lab's Empirical Legal Data Specialist will be an integral part of the Law Library's Legal Data Lab, supporting empirical legal studies and AI-based projects undertaken by Law School faculty, administrators, and students. The successful candidate will have a passion for applying data-driven research to foster a greater understanding of legal and social issues. The ideal candidate will have substantial coursework in data science, statistics, or quantitative/computational social science. The ideal candidate will also have the ability to rapidly learn, evaluate, and apply new computational and statistical methods in response to evolving research needs; strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail; a strong understanding of social scientific research methods; and excellent communication skills to convey complex findings to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

• Collect, clean, integrate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources and present results in a visually compelling manner.
• Support data quality, documentation, validation, and research reproducibility.
• Regularly review relevant social scientific literature and stay abreast of emerging social scientific, computational, and statistical research methods relevant to empirical legal studies.
• Attend and/or present at one or two conferences per year.
• Explore, evaluate, adapt, and implement appropriate computational and statistical methods in response to project-specific research needs.
• Develop, maintain, and update internal and public-facing research databases and data resources.
• Maintain and contribute to the development of the Legal Data Lab website and other public-facing research infrastructure.
• Other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in data science, statistics, quantitative/computational social science or a related field.
• Two or more years of relevant experience independently conducting quantitative or computational social science research and using high-performance computing (HPC) environments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in data science, statistics, quantitative/computational social science or a related field strongly preferred.
• Hands-on experience with web design, HTML, and APIs.
• Expertise of one or more programming languages (e.g. Python, R, Stata).
• Experience in a fast-paced environment working concurrently on multiple projects.
• Experience supporting data-intensive research projects, including those that have led to publication in peer-reviewed journals or conference presentations.
• Knowledge of and the underlying architecture of generative AI.
• Understanding of the life cycle of data-intensive research projects.
• Understanding of the U.S. legal system or a strong motivation to learn.

This is a full-time, exempt University Staff position with benefits. This position requires most work to be performed in person at the Law School, with the opportunity to perform a limited amount of work remotely in accordance with Law School policy.

The School of Law is in Charlottesville, Virginia, a college town setting in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Charlottesville area offers many opportunities for outdoor recreation, an active arts and music scene, and access to historical sites where researchers continue to explore the region's past. Charlottesville is often ranked among the best places to live in the United States.

To Apply

Please apply online, by searching for requisition number R0088350. Complete an application with the following documents:

• Resume
• Cover Letter
• Contact information for three references

Upload all materials into the resume submission field. You can submit multiple documents into this one field or combine them into one PDF. Applications without all required documents will not receive full consideration.

Internal applicants: Search and apply for jobs on the UVA Internal Careers website.

Contact

Questions regarding the position should be directed to Li Zhang, Head of Legal Data Lab, at lzhang@law.virginia.edu.

For questions about the application process, please contact Melanie Sponaugle, unw5dq@virginia.edu.

The University will perform background checks on all new hires prior to employment.

The University of Virginia is an equal opportunity employer. All interested persons are encouraged to apply, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Learn more about UVA's commitment to non-discrimination and equal opportunity employment.