Governing inequality: a systematic literature review of how law and technology shape justice for the marginalized

In the past decade, digital technologies have transformed the ways legal systems regulate, surveil, and support marginalized communities. Yet these transformations also reveal how law and technology co-produce new forms of exclusion and inequality. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) guided by the PRISMA framework to synthesize empirical research published between 2015 and 2025 at the intersection of law, technology, and marginalized communities. Drawing on 18 empirical studies identified from Scopus and Web of Science, we examine how emerging technologies reshape access to justice and legal protection. Our analysis integrates descriptive mapping with thematic synthesis and identifies five recurring patterns: forced techno-use, legal fragmentation, exceptionalism, algorithmic injustice, and epistemic conflict. Across these studies, we find that law co-produces inclusion and exclusion through regulatory design. Theoretical frameworks such as intersectionality, Science and Technology Studies (STS), Indigenous epistemologies, and political economy illuminate the complex power relations embedded in these systems, while notable gaps persist in participatory, comparative, and computational approaches. We conclude by proposing a research and policy agenda that advances participatory governance and what we term compliance-with-conscience, a model of technological regulation that foregrounds dignity, consent, and collective agency. Our review contributes to an emerging sociolegal agenda for equitable and reflexive technology governance.