Modeling in law

Introduction: the paper discusses the significance and relevance of the modeling method in law and legal activity, the concept and ontological features of modeling in law. We consider legal modeling to be not only a research method but also an activity involved in the transformation of legal systems, landscapes, and spaces. Being such an activity, it is applied in the design and assessment in rule making, in the ‘architecture’ of regulatory spaces being designed, is associated with such a technology, belonging to the ‘ecosystem’ of the latest regulatory technologies (LegalTech), as legal experiment. Purpose: on the basis of the general theory of modeling and a number of our own scientific hypotheses about the significance of applying the modeling method for ensuring the implementation of legislative activity (including as part of the processes of designing and implementing a legislative experiment), to explore the possibilities and tools of legal modeling, the essence and advantages of this instrumental-methodological approach, the types of modeling that are relevantly applicable as part of lawmaking activity and legal activity in general, the features and logic of modeling in lawmaking. Methods: analysis and synthesis, deduction, induction and abduction, classification and modeling, comparison and analogy, generalization, formalization and idealization, observation. Results: we have described and explained the nature, essence, ontological features, and instrumental support of the application of the modeling method in law and legal activity, the advantages and scope of its use, the variety of approaches and tools within this method, its relationship with the method of regulatory experiment. Conclusions: the method of legal modeling is related to the method of regulatory experiment, it is one of the promising relevant approaches to ensuring the preparation and implementation of a regulatory experiment and, at the same time, one of its supporting mechanisms. When applying modeling, it is possible to make the process of a regulatory experiment more predictable and adequate (due to the opportunity to choose the most correct ways of implementing such an experiment from the very beginning), to make it more initially calculated. Although modeling has long been known as a method applied in law and legal activity, so far it has demonstrated too few empirically valuable results and relevant theoretical generalizations at a serious level. It needs further development and support, especially with regard to the application of this method in combination with the method of regulatory experiment.