My research combines empirical methods and doctrinal analysis to examine how firms and other institutions respond to legal reform, institutional constraints, and technological change. Much of my work treats legal text as data: I build original datasets from corporate charters and bylaws, privacy policies, judicial opinions, and other legal documents to study patterns in corporate governance and regulatory behavior that have previously been difficult to observe at scale. I also examine how artificial intelligence is changing the possibilities and methodological demands of empirical legal research.

 

My writing has appeared in leading academic journals, among them the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Journal on Regulation.

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My teaching interests are in business law and at the intersection of law and technology. Together with Holger Spamann, I am the co-author of a Corporations casebook.

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Further information about my work is available on my Google Scholar Page and my SSRN Author Page.

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If you have any questions, please get in touch. My email address is fjens@wustl.edu.