Monica Palmirani

Monica Palmirani is an Italian legal informatics scholar and full professor of Legal Informatics and ICT Law at the University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies, where she is a member of the CIRSFID-AlmaAI research centre (Centre for Research in the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Law and in Computer Science and Law). She is best known as co-author of the Akoma Ntoso legal XML standard and for her leadership roles within the OASIS open standards consortium.

Education

Palmirani graduated in Mathematics and subsequently completed a PhD in Legal Informatics and IT Law at the University of Bologna.

Career

Palmirani has taught Legal Informatics, eGovernment, Legal Drafting Techniques, and Legal XML at the University of Bologna since 2001. Akoma Ntoso was adopted as an OASIS standard in 2018 under the name LegalDocML.

Within OASIS, Palmirani serves as co-chair of the LegalDocML Technical Committee and the LegalRuleML Technical Committee, and is a member of the LegalXML Steering Committee. In 2015, OASIS named her an OASIS Distinguished Contributor for her exceptional contribution to legal standardisation models.

Palmirani is Director of the Erasmus Mundus International PhD Programme "Law, Science and Technology", which has also been supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowships.

In 2022, Palmirani was awarded a €2.4 million grant from the European Research Council as Principal Investigator of the HyperModeLex project, which investigates the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics to support the legislative drafting process while preserving democratic and constitutional principles.

In July 2024, a research consortium coordinated by Palmirani won a prize at the Camera dei Deputati (Italian Chamber of Deputies) for the GENAI4LEX-B project, which developed generative AI tools to support parliamentary work, including analysis and drafting of legislation.

Palmirani has acted as consultant to numerous international bodies including UN/DESA, the European Parliament, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Senate of Italy, the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, and the Swiss Federal Council.

Research

Palmirani's principal research areas are Legislative XML, legal ontologies, norm modelling, eGovernment, and the application of artificial intelligence to law. She is co-author of Akoma Ntoso, CEN MetaLex, and NormeInRete legal document standards. She has served as project manager for more than ten European research projects, including ICT4LAW, Estrella, EuCases, Lynx, and FAST-LISA.

Awards and recognition

OASIS Distinguished Contributor (2015) European Research Council Advanced Grant, HyperModeLex project (2022)