Introducing The Docket: A One-Stop Shop for the Legal Academy’s Calls for Papers

HONOLULU, Hawaiʻi (May 11, 2026) — The William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, is proud to introduce The Docket: a free, comprehensive call-for-papers (CFP) aggregator tailored for the legal academy. It offers real-time information on CFPs for conferences, symposia, workshops, law reviews, and scholarly blogs. By leveraging a tiered system of AI agents, The Docket indexes over 500 active sources—continuously discovering, classifying, and triaging opportunities under expert human supervision. Legal scholars from around the world can now search the site, subscribe to filtered email digests, and export deadlines directly to their calendars.

Professor Guy Rubinstein identified the need for a centralized legal CFP aggregator and initiated the project. “There have never been more opportunities for law professors to present, share, and publish their work,” says Professor Rubinstein. “However, due to the abundance of listservs, blogs, and social media platforms, it is becoming increasingly difficult for scholars to track every opportunity. I wanted to create a tool that would bridge that gap by bringing everything into one view.”

To bring the vision to life, Professor Rubinstein collaborated with Dr. Benjamin Leider, the Innovation Fellow at the William S. Richardson School of Law. A Richardson alumnus whose background bridges the gap between academic scholarship and technical development, Dr. Leider built the platform from the ground up. “I turned to AI after quickly realizing that in taking on this project, I’d volunteered to maintain it indefinitely, and that the ongoing labor would be substantial,” says Dr. Leider. His turn to AI was also informed by the discontinuation of prior efforts to collect data about legal academic events, such as The Legal Scholarship Blog and Calling All Papers. As Dr. Leider explains, these important platforms closed because they depended on volunteer labor that couldn’t be sustained in the long term.

Drawing on his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Leider offers a unique perspective on the intersection of human logic and machine learning. “Surprisingly,” he explains, “getting AI to do real work was much more like management than dealing with technology. AI agents need clearly defined jobs, and they need the right tools to do them. When they fail, it’s almost always because job expectations are unclear, or because the tools provide a bad user experience—a bad experience for the agents themselves—or because you’re expecting one agent to have the expertise of three specialists.”

After a successful trial period and feedback from Richardson faculty, the platform was officially launched to the wider community. Professor Brian Huffman, Richardson’s Electronic Services Librarian and Director of Faculty Development, sees the tool as a vital resource for institutional growth. “The Docket uniquely supports faculty development and scholarship by spotlighting publishing and presentation opportunities, enabling faculty to engage quickly and strategically with the broader academic community,” says Professor Huffman. “The Library supports this project in its effort to help faculty research and promote their scholarship as well as improve professional development. Other peer institutions will also certainly benefit from The Docket as this site is free and open to all.”

Dean Camille Nelson praised the initiative as a testament to the school’s innovation and forward-thinking environment. “The Docket reflects the kind of work we strive to cultivate at Richardson. By expanding access to opportunities for legal scholars, this initiative strengthens the exchange of ideas that is essential to advancing justice,” Dean Nelson said.

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About William S. Richardson School of Law

The William S. Richardson School of Law is a collaborative, multicultural community preparing students for excellence in the practice of law and related careers that advance justice and the rule of law. We develop highly qualified, ethical professionals through excellence in teaching, scholarship, and public service. We embrace Hawai‘i’s diversity and values and recognize a special responsibility to our state and the Pacific region.

MEDIA CONTACT

Collin Cedotal, Public Information Specialist
(808) 956-9391 | ccedotal@hawaii.edu