On this episode of law.MIT.edu's IdeaFlow, guest Michael Zargham joins host Dazza Greenwood to explore the concept of "legal engineering" from a range of perspectives. Both engineers and lawyers are specially trained professionals who apply their expertise, ostensibly, on behalf of society according to codes of ethics. Both disciplines work within the boundaries of standard procedures but must also exercise judgment regarding particular circumstances. Engineers manage technical complexity whereas lawyers manage legal complexity, but those two domains are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Michael Zargham is the founder and Chief Engineer at BlockScience, and a Core Member of the Metagovernance Project. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied Optimal Resource Allocation Policies in Networks. His ongoing work focuses on engineering best practices in estimation, decision, and control, as applied to mechanism design, operations research, and institutional analysis and development.