Law, politics, and the environment, through the lens of ethics, economics, and data.

About

Michael A. Livermore is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on regulation, environmental law, and the application of artificial intelligence to the law, often in collaboration with researchers in economics, computer science, neurology, and the humanities. His work has appeared in leading law journals, including the Yale Law Journal and the University of Chicago Law Review, as well as peer-reviewed legal, scientific, and social science journals.

Much of his environmental work has centered on cost-benefit analysis in regulatory decision making. When used properly, this tool can clarify difficult tradeoffs and integrate analysis, expertise, and evidence into environmental policy. For the past decade he has complemented this normative work with empirical scholarship in law-as-data, a research paradigm with roots in empirical legal studies, pragmatism, and legal realism that treats the law as a living social and political practice. His current book project, Varieties of Being, develops a theory of moral value that seeks to bridge traditional divides between environmental and economic perspectives.