The rapid development of IT-technologies and the IT-industry gives rise to new challenges for legal science and practice. As a response to these challenges, information technology law or IT-law is being formed, and it needs legal analysis from the perspective of theory as well as in terms of finding a solution for specific application tasks. So far, international and Ukrainian publications do not offer a unified approach for understanding IT-law, and therefore there is a need to explore it as a new phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to analyze modern approaches defining IT-law in the Ukrainian and international dimensions, and to generalize them with the aim of forming a possible understanding of information technology law in the process of teaching and scientific research. The author has formulated three approaches to the IT-law definition and its vision as one of the most promising areas of development in modern legal science and specialized training of competitive legal professionals of the Legal Tech generation. The author also identifies its place in the system of law and the relation to information and digital law. Based on the conducted research it is proved that IT-law has all the chances to become an independent branch of law with its specific subject-matter, methodology, object and subject structure and regulatory principles. The specific features of IT-law in the new era are identified and the prospects are seen for the development of its separate institutions in the near future both in Ukraine and abroad.

Authored books 
1. Fell J and others, It Law: An Iseb Foundation (1st edn, BCS 2007) (in English).

2. Holt J and Newton J, A Manager’s Guide to IT Law (BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT 2011) (in English). 
3. Landy G K and Mastrobattista A J, The IT Digital Legal Companion: A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT, Internet, Media and IP Law (1st edn, Syngress 2008) (in English). 
4. Lloyd I J, Information Technology Law (6th edn, OUP 2011) (in English). 
5. Murray A, Information Technology Law: The Law and Society (3rd edn, OUP 2016) (in English). 
6. Rattan J, Cyber Laws & Information Technology (For LL.B.) (6th edn, Bharat Law House Pvt Ltd 2017) (in English). 
7. Rowland D and Kohl U and Charlesworth A, Information Technology Law (5th edn, Routledge 2016) (in English). 
8. Baranov O, Informatsiine pravo Ukrainy: stan, problemy, perspektyvy [Information Law of Ukraine: Current State, Issues, and Prospects] (Vydavnychyi dim “SoftPres” 2005) 51 (in Ukrainian). 
9. Poljakova I, Pravo + ІT = Biznes-puti Juridicheskie reshenija dlja biznesa v sfere ІT [Law + ІT = Business Ways Legal Solutions for Business in the IT-Sector] (FLP Marchenko 2016) (in Russian). 

Edited books 
10. Bachynskyi T ta inshi, Osnovy IT-prava [Foundations of IT-Law] (Taras Bachynskyi red, 2-he vyd, Yurinkom Inter 2017) (in Ukrainian). 
11. Kharytonov Ye ta Kharytonova O (red), IT-pravo: teoriia ta praktyka [IT-Law: Theory and Practice] (Feniks 2017) (in Ukrainian). 
12. Yavorska O (red), IT-pravo [IT-Law] (Vydavnytstvo “Levada” 2017) (in Ukrainian). 

Articles 
13. Galesnik L, ‘O problemah sistemy prava’ [‘On the Issues of the System of Law’] (1957) 2 Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo 108 (in Russian). 
14. Kharytonov Ye, ‘Informatsiine suspilstvo ta IT-sfera: shliakhy vporiadkuvannia’ [‘Information Society and IT-Sector: Ways of Harmonization’] (2017) 26 Chasopys tsyvilistyky 7 (in Ukrainian). 

Conference papers 
15. Radutnyi O, ‘Artificial intelligence (shtuchnyi intelekt) ta inshi zahrozy (kryminalnopravovyi vymir)’ [‘Artificial Intelligence and Other Threats (from the Criminal Law Perspective’)] IT-pravo: problemy ta perspektyvy rozvytku v Ukraini: II Mizhnarodna naukovo-praktychna konferentsiia [IT-Law: Development Issues and Prospects in Ukraine: Second Scientific and Practical Conference] (NU “Lvivska politekhnika” 2017) (in Ukrainian). 

Websites 
16. Fries M, ‘Man versus Machine: Using Legal Tech to Optimize the Rule of Law’ (SSRN, 24 September 2016) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2842726 accessed 29 November 2017 (in English). 
17. Lemley M A and Volokh E, ‘Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality’ (SSRN, 17 March 2017) accessed 25 November 2017 (in English). 
18. ‘Resolution with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Ro botics (2015/2103(INL))’ (European Parliament, 16 February 2017) accessed 28 November 2017 (in English). 
19. Horodyskyi I, ‘Ukrainskyi katolytskyi universytet pochne hotuvaty profesiinykh IT-yurystiv’ [‘The Ukrainian Catholic University Will Start Training Professional IT-Lawyers’] (MediaSapiens, 8 Veresen 2016) accessed 20 November 2017 (in Ukrainian). 

Blogs 
20. Irtlach K, ‘Ilon Mask: “Iskusstvennyj intellekt rano ili pozdno prikonchit vseh nas”’ [‘Elon Musk: “Sooner or Later Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy Us All”’] (ITCua, 24 Nojabr’ 2017) accessed 28 November 2017 (in Russian). 

Newspaper articles 
21. Zheltukhin Ye, ‘Legal tech: na mezhi prava ta tekhnolohii’ [‘Legal tech: At the Intersection of Law and Technologies’] Yurydychna hazeta (Kyiv, 6 Cherven 2017) (in Ukrainian).