Experimental Course: Coding for Lawyers
The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law introduces an experimental course “Coding for Lawyers” for our Year 2 LLB or above, JD, LLM, MCL, and PhD students in Year 2025-26! In the era of big data and AI, this intensive course provides law students with no prior experience an accessible primer on classical programming and machine learning using Python.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
✔ Core programming principles (variables, data types, loops, conditionals, functions) and computational logic.
✔ Utilize the Python programming language to create small, functional scripts.
✔ Ideate how computer programmes can be used to automate or solve routine legal tasks.
✔ Understand basic principles of machine learning (train-test split, supervised and unsupervised learning, evaluation metrics)
Class schedule
1. Thursday, 18 September 2025 (Evening), 7-9pm
Introductory Lecture: How Machines Learn
2. Saturday, 20 September 2025 (Morning), 9am-12pm
Coding Topics: Expressions and Variables
3. Monday, 22 September 2025 (Evening), 7-9pm
Coding Topics: Booleans and conditionals
4. Wednesday, 24 September 2025 (Evening), 7-9pm
Topics: Loops
5. Saturday, 27 September 2025 (Morning), 9am-12pm
Topics: Lists and Dictionaries
6. Thursday, 2 October 2025 (Evening), 7-9pm
Topics: Functions
7. Saturday, 4 October 2025 (Morning), 9am-12pm
Topics: Putting it all together
8. Thursday, 9 October 2025 (Evening), 7-8pm
Topics: Review
9. Saturday, 11 October 2025 (Morning), 9-11am
Examination
Lecturers:
Professor Daniel Seng (National University of Singapore Faculty of Law)
Professor Benjamin Chen (HKU Faculty of Law)
Limited to 50 sign-ups!
Deadline to apply: September 15, 2025. Registration fee: HK$ 200 (non-refundable). Payment instructions will be sent to eligible students who have registered.
This course is non-credit bearing and is weighted at 50% on coursework and 50% on examination. The exam will be held on October 11, 2025. Students who have passed the examination will be awarded a Certificate of Completion. Minimum attendance of at least 12 hours of class time (excluding review and exam).
✨ Sign up for the course now! 👉 https://forms.office.com/r/qGYj5VRt1z
For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at mcgrace@hku.hk.