Abstract:

What does big data technology mean in terms of methodology for legal research?It is still a specious question.The most relevant method is the legal empirical research which is based on statistics.In Chinese legal circles，the specific methods of legal empirical research are still limited to several regression models，the data collection depends on the social resources of the researchers，and the sample size stops at hundreds of thousands.These above-mentioned shortcomings are expected to be partially improved by big data technology.The basic steps of the application of big data technology are corpus acquisition，corpus translation into data，and data cleaning and analysis.Big data technology has many advantages such as more data acquisition channels，larger data scale，richer analysis tools，etc.Meanwhile，it also some has some disadvantages such as not taking care of individual cases，high technical thresholds，and poor model interpretation.However，the advantages of using big data technology in legal research generally overweigh the disadvantages of it.Specifically，big data technology is a relay relationship for legal empirical research，which can expand the internet channels for data acquisition，improve the ability of empirical research to describe and analyze，and enrich the argumentation in important research topics such as the rule of law in China.Big data technology serves as an aid to the study of legal norms.With the use of big data technology，not only the interpretation theory can be more based on the real problems of judicial practice，but the actual effect of the legislative theory research can be measured more accurately.

Key words: Legal Big Data, Big Data Technology, Legal Empirical Research, Digital Law, Method of Legal Research

摘要：

大数据技术对法学研究而言在方法论上意味着什么？目前这仍是一个人言人殊的问题。与之最相关的是以统计学为基础的法律实证研究。在中国法学界，法律实证研究的具体方法当下尚停留于有限的几种回归模型，数据收集依赖于研究者的社会资源，样本量止步于百千级。以上诸点不足有望通过大数据技术得到改观。大数据技术运用的基本步骤是语料获取、语料转译为数据、数据清洗和数据分析，这种方法具有更多的数据获取渠道、更大的数据规模、更丰富的分析工具等优势，同时也存在关照不到个案、技术门槛高、模型解释性差等局限。不过，大数据技术在法学研究中的运用，总体上利大于弊。具体来说，大数据技术对于法律实证研究是接力关系，可以拓展数据获取的互联网渠道，提高实证研究的描述分析能力，并在法治中国等研究议题中改进论证的效果；大数据技术对于法律规范研究则是一次助力，其运用能使解释论更加从司法实践的真问题出发，立法论研究中的立法效果也能得到更准确地测量。

关键词: 法律大数据, 大数据技术, 法律实证研究, 数字法学, 法学研究方法