Iโm a researcher and educator working at the intersection of Empirical Legal Studies, Law & Economics, and Legal AI. Over the years, I have taught and conducted research at institutions across Europe, including the European University Institute in Italy, the Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales (CEPC) in Spain, Sciences Po and University of Toulouse-Capitole in France and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Law in Germany. I am currently Professor at the KU Leuven and Managing Director of the Centre for Legal Theory and Empirical Jurisprudence.
My academic journey has been deeply interdisciplinary. I have collaborated with economists, psychologists, computer linguists, and political scientists to explore law from multiple perspectives. This cross-pollination of ideas was particularly intense in my ERC-funded EUTHORITY Project, which delved into the dynamics of conflict and cooperation within the EUโs multilevel legal system. My current research interests encompass deceptive persuasion, behavioural comparative law (COMPASS Project), and inter-group biases in litigation. My research lab in Leuven has promoted the use of empirical, experimental and machine learning methods in the legal field, organising workshops and training sessions along with the first two Conference in Empirical Legal Studies in Europe (CELS-E) in 2016 and 2018.
My path to academia was unconventional. I never attended school as a child. I grew up on the move, often living in abandoned homes or under a tent, without running water or electricity. Education, in any structured form, was basically absent. I only discovered I could read and write at the age of ten when I was entrusted to a complete stranger who took me on an eight-month journey through the Sahara and West Africa โ where we ran out of money, and I battled malaria. I received my real schooling from the Quid encyclopedia I received from relatives, one Christmas I thought the holiday had been abolished. I first stepped into a classroom in college after securing admission through self-study, sometimes cribbing notes from textbooks in bookshops. This background has shaped my deep belief in science and education. It has also fueled my commitment to research that bridges disciplines and methods, challenging conventional legal thinking with empirical insights.