The Organization of American States (OAS), in 2015, published the book called: Public Policy Observatories in the Americas, a guide for their design and implementation in our public administrations (Organization of American States, 2015). Said manual highlights the importance of the creation of legal observatories for the transmission of knowledge, through the dissemination of studies, statistics and publications that achieve the unification of cases and the exchange of experiences, with the purpose of generating in the viewer a vision criticism and analysis of reality that makes it a protagonist, contributing to society in the execution of ideas and projects, duly supported by the analyzes that one or more observatories have provided. In this sense, it is a challenge, typical for these times, of digital transformation and access to massive information, to potentiate the figure of legal observatories in universities, cradles of scientific research. For this reason, this article has as a substantial purpose to explain the main characteristics of the existing observatories in national and international universities and to justify their relevance for the academy, both in strengthening research and in improving teaching and education of citizens. The methodology used in this research work is of a qualitative approach with an explanatory character, since it seeks to offer a look at the different current legal observatories to discover the inherent elements and principles that guide these knowledge centers. In this way, it will be possible, from the deductive method, to prioritize the need to establish a link between legal observatories and universities in the paradigm of scientific-academic research.