Tilmann Altwicker holds the Chair of Legal Data Science and Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich as Associate Professor as of August 1, 2023. He is also chair of the Executive Board of the Center for Legal Data Science (CLDS). His research focuses on the use of data science methods to extract information from legal data (e.g. judgments, legislative acts). The object of these research projects is to identify patterns or trends in legal data or to predict decisions in the legal system. The aim is to develop an improved understanding of the law «in practice», to test assumptions about the law, and overall to contribute to a stronger evidence-based approach in legal studies and to reflect on it theoretically.

Tilmann studied law and philosophy in Heidelberg and Budapest. He received his doctorate in Mannheim in 2010. He was awarded a Diploma in Applied Statistics from ETH Zurich in 2017 and completed his «Habilitation» at the University of Basel in 2018. He was SNSF Ambizione research group leader at the University of Basel (2013-2017) and held an SNSF professorship at the University of Zurich (2017-2023). Tilmann has held several visiting professorships at HSG and is a Review Panel Expert at the European Cooperation in Science & Technology, EU COST.

Research Interests

• Legal data (collection, analysis, use)
• Law & statistics (statistics-based reasoning, application of statistical methods in legal studies)
• Law & machine learning (use of ML in the collection and analysis of legal data)
• Digitalization & legal studies (changes in knowledge production and knowledge representation about law under the conditions of digitalization)