Skip to main content
Log in

Representing and using legal knowledge in integrated decision support systems: DataLex WorkStations

  • Published:
Artificial Intelligence and Law Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is more to legal knowledge representation than knowledge-bases. It is valuable to look at legal knowledge representation and its implementation across the entire domain of ‘computerisation of law’, rather than focussing on sub-domains such as ‘legal expert systems’. The DataLex WorkStation software and applications developed using it are used to provide examples. Effective integration of inferencing, hypertext and text retrieval can overcome some of the limitations of these current paradigms of legal computerisation which are apparent when they are used on a ‘stand-alone’ basis. Effective integration of inferencing systems is facilitated by use of a (quasi) natural language knowledge representation, and the benefits of isomorphism are enhanced. These advantages of integration apply to all forms of inferencing, including document generation and casebased inferencing. Some principles for development of integrated legal decision support systems are proposed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen, L. & Saxon, C. 1991. More IA needed in AI: Interpretation Assistance for Coping with the Problem of Multiple Structural Interpretations.Proc. 3rd ICAIL, ACM Press.

  • Anderson, J 1989. Interactive Multimedia: Discovery by Design. MacUser, March 1989, pp. 97–8.

  • Ashley, K. 1990.Modeling Legal Argument: Reasoning with Cases and hypotheticals, MIT Press.

  • Barrett, E. ed. 1989.The Society of Text — Hypertext, Hypermedia and the Social Construction of Information, MIT Press.

  • Bench-Capon, T. 1989. Deep Models, Normative Reasoning and Legal Expert Systems.Proc. 2nd ICAIL, ACM Press.

  • Bench-Capon, T. ed. 1991.Knowledge Base Systems and Legal Applications, Academic Press.

  • Bench-Capon, T. 1993. Neural Networks and Open Texture.Proc. 4th ICAIL, ACM Press, 292–297.

  • Bench-Capon, T. & Forder, J. 1991. Knowledge Representation for Legal Applications. In Bench-capon, 1991.

  • Bench-Capon, T. & Coenen, F. 1991. Exploiting Isomorphism: Development of a KBS to Support British Coal Insurance Claims.Proc. 3rd ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Bench-Capon, T. & Coenen, F. 1992 Isomorphism and Legal Knowledge-Based systems.Artificial Intelligence and Law 1: 65–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berg, Aet al. 1988. Developing a KBS Support System for Handling Social Assistance, SAFAD Stockholm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berman, D. 1991. Developer's Choice in the Legal Domain: The Sisyphean Journey with CBR or Down Hill with RulesProceeding 3rd ICAIL, ACM Press, 307–9.

  • Berman, D. & Hafner, C. 1991. Incorporating Procedural Context into a Model of Case-based Legal ReasoningProc. 3rd ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Bing, J. ed. 1984.Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval. North Holland.

  • Bing, J. 1986. The Text Retrieval System as a Convers[at]ion Partner.2 Yearbook of Law, Computers and Technology Butterworths, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bing, J. 1987. Performance of Text Retrieval Systems: The Curse of Boole 79.Law Lib J.

  • Bing, J. 1988. The Concept and Design of Integrated Work Stations for Public Administration, International Council for IT in Government Administration, 22nd Conference, Estoril.

  • Bing, J. 1991. Rules and Representations. In P Blume ed.Nordic Studies in Information Technology and Law, Kluwer, Deventer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blair, D. & Maron, M. 1985. An Evaluation of Retrieval Effectiveness for a Full-Text Document Retrieval System 28(3)Communications of the ACM, 289.

  • Branting, K. 1993. An Issue-Oriented Approach to Judicial Document Assembly.Proceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press, 228–235.

  • Branting K. 1994. A Computational Model of Ratio Decidendi.Artificial Intelligence and Law, 2:1, 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, M. 1989.Computerizing for Personal Productivity Butterworths, Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, G. 1993. CHINATAX: Exploring Isomorphism with Chinese Law.Proceedings 4th ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Choquette, M, Poulin, D. & Bratley, P. Compiling Legal Hypertexts, unpublished, Centre de recherche en droit public, Université de Montréal, 1995.

  • Colloquy 19887th Colloquy on the Use of Computers in Administration of Justice — Integrated Work Stations in the Legal Sector and Decision Support Systems. Council of Europe, Lisbon.

  • Dayal, S, Johnson, P. & Mead, D. 1994. Natural Language — An Appropriate Knowledge Representation Scheme for the Administrative Domain. SoftLaw Corporation (Canberra),Proceedings 2nd World Congress on Expert Systems, Lisbon, Jan. 1994.

  • Dayal, S, Harmer, M, Johnson, P. & Mead, D. 1993. Beyond Knowledge Representation: Commercial Uses for Legal Knowledge Bases,Proceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press.

  • Dayal, S & Moles, R. 1993. The Open Texture of Language: Handling Semantic Analysis in Legal Decision Support Systems,Journal of Law and Information Science 4: 2, 331–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • deBessonet, C. 1991.A Many-Valued Approach to Deduction and Reasoning for Artificial Intelligence, Kluwer, The Netherlands.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deedman, C, Gelbart, D. & Coleman, M. 1992. SLATE: Specialised Legal Automated Term Extraction.International Conference on Database and Expert System Applications, Valencia.

  • Dupuis, R, Thomasset, C. & Paquin, L. 1993. Towards a Methodology for the Validation of Expert Systems: The Case of Loge-Expert.Proceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press, 66–71.

  • Evans, D. 1990. Artificial Intelligence and Document Assembly.Law Practice Management 16: 4, 18–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frei, HP. 1990. The Future of Information Systems, Seminar paper, CIRCIT, Melbourne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelbart, D. & Smith, J. 1992. Towards Combining Automated Text Retrieval and Case-Based Expert Legal Advice.Law Technology Journal 1: 2, 19–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelbart, D. & Smith, J. 1993. FLEXICON: An Evaluation of a Statistical Ranking Model Adapted to Intelligent Legal Text Management,Proceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press, 142–151.

  • Gordon, T. 1989. A Theory Construction Approach to Document Assembly, Pre-proceedings ofThe Third International Conference on Logic, Informatics and Law 2: 485–489, Florence.

  • Greenleaf, G. & Mowbray, A. 1993a. Controlling and Augmenting Legal Inferencing — ysh, a Case StudyProceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press 162–166.

  • Greenleaf, G. & Mowbray, A. 1993b.Information Technology in Complex Criminal Trials, Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, Melbourne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenleaf G, Mowbray, A. & Lewis, D. 1988.Australasian Computerised Legal Information Handbook, Butterworths.

  • Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A. & van Dijk, P. 1994a.DataLex WorkStations User Manual. DataLex Pty Ltd, 40pgs.

  • Greenleaf, G., Mowbray, A. & van Dijk, P. 1994b.DataLex WorkStations Developers Manual. (2nd Ed) DataLex Pty Ltd, 105 pgs.

  • Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A. & Tyree, A. 1987. Legal Expert Systems — Words, words words.... 3Yearbook of Law Computers & Technology.

  • Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A. & Tyree, A. 1991. The DataLex Legal Workstation,Proc. 3rd ICAIL. ACM Press (reprinted in Vol. 3 No. 2Journal of Law and Information Science 1992, 219–240).

  • Greenleaf, G, Mowbray, A. & Tyree, A. 1991. The Privacy Workstation. 6Yearbook of Law, Computers and Technology, 1992.

  • Hafner, C. & Wise, V. 1993. SmartLaw: Adopting Classic Expert systems techniques for the Legal research domain.Proceedings 4th ICAIL, ACM Press.

  • Hypertext Special Issue (papers presented at Hypertext '87) 31(7)Communications of the ACM, July 1988.

  • Johnson, D. Building and using Hypertext System in the Practice of Law, Wilmer Cutler and Pickering, Washington (unpublished).

  • Johnson, P. & Mead, D. 1989a. Legislative Expert systems (unpublished), SoftLaw, Canberra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, P. & Mead, D. 1989b Natural Language — An Appropriate Knowledge Representation Scheme for Legislative Expert Systems (unpublished), SoftLaw, Canberra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, P. & Mead, D. 1991. Legislative Knowledge Base Systems for Public AdministrationProceedings 3rd ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Karpf, J. 1989Quality Assurance of Legal Expert Systems, Jurimatics No. 8, Copenhagen Business School.

  • Kaspersen, H. & Oskamp, A eds. 1990.Among Friends in Computers and Law. Kluwer, Deventer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koers, Aet al. 1990. Delphi Revisited: The Mythology of the Lawyer's Electronic Workbench. In Kaspersen & Oskamp 1990.

  • Konstatantionou, V, Sykes, J, Yannopoulos, G. 1993. Can Legal Knowledge Be Derived Form Legal Texts?Proceedings 4th ICAIL. ACM Press, 218–227.

  • Kracht, D, de Vey Mestdagh, C. & Svensson, JLegal Knowledge Based Systems: An Overview of Criteria for Validation and Practical Use, Koninklijke Vermande, Lelystad, The Netherlands.

  • Lauritsen, M. 1992. Technology Report: Building Legal Practice Systems with Today's Commercial Authoring ToolsArtificial Intelligence and Law 1: 87–102, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lauritsen, M. 1993. Knowing DocumentsProceedings 4th ICAIL. ACM Press, 184–191.

  • McAleese, R. & Green, C. 1990.Hypertext — State of the Art, Ablex, NJ, 1990.

  • Mital, V. & Johnson, L. 1992.Advanced Information Systems for Lawyers. Chapman & Hall.

  • Moles, R. 1991. Logic Programming — An Assessment of Its Potential for Artificial Intelligence.Journal of Law and Information Science 2, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oskamp, A. & van der Berg, P. 1990. Legal Expert Systems and Legal Text Retrieval Systems: How About Integration? In Kaspersen & Oskamp 1990.

  • Painter, D. 1990. Hyperlaw,Law Technology Centre & BILETA Newsletter 2: 3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paquin, L, Blanchard, F, & Thomasset, C. 1991. Loge-Expert: From a Legal Expert System to an Information System for Non-LawyersProceedings 3rd ICAIL, ACM Press, 254–259.

  • Poulin, D, Bratley, P, Frémont & Mackaay, E. 1993. Legal Interpretation in Expert Systems.Proceedings 4th ICAIL. ACM Press, 90–99.

  • Rissland, E & Skalak, R. 1989. Interpreting Statutory Predicates.Proc. 2nd ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Routen, T. 1989. Hierarchically Organised formalisation.Proceedings 2nd ICAIL. ACM Press.

  • Sanders, K. 1991. Representing and Reasoning about Open-Textured Predicates.Proceedings 3rd ICAIL, ACM Press, 137–144.

  • Savoy, J. 1994. Searching Information in Legal Hypertext Systems.Artificial Intelligence and Law 2, 205–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schild, U. 1992.Expert Systems and Case Law, Ellis Horwood, Chichester.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sergot, M. 1991. The Representation of Law in Computer Programs. In Bench-Capon 1991.

  • Sergot, M, Kamble, A. & Bajaj, A. 1991. Indian Civil Service Pension Rules: A Case Study in Applying Logic Programming to Regulations.Proceedings 3rd ICAIL, ACM Press.

  • Smith, J. & Weiss, S. 1988. Hypertext 31(7)Communications of the ACM.

  • Softlaw Corporation, 1994.STATUTE Corporate — Component Technologies Guide, SoftLaw Corporation, Canberra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soper, P, Hall, W, Pasha, M. & Heath, I Knowledge Based Hypermedia. InProceedings of The Workshop on Logic Programming Word Environments, University of Edinburgh, September 1993.

  • Soper, P. & Bench-Capon, T. 1994. Coupling Hypertext and Knowledge Based Systems: Two Applications in the Legal DomainArtificial Intelligence and Law 2:293–314.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sprowl, J. 1979. Automating the Legal Drafting Process: A Computer That Uses Regulations and Statutes to Draft Legal Documents. 1American Bar Foundation Research Journal 1–81

  • Stamper, R. 1988. Book review,The Times.

  • Stephen, C. & Schreiber, H. 1989. CD-ROM, Hypertext and the Law, Australian Law Librarians Conference.

  • Susskind, R. 1987.Expert Systems in Law. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor & Brown 1988. Supporting Local Office Adjudication, Alvey DHSS Large Demonstrator Project, Dept. of Systems, University of Lancaster.

  • Taylor 1988. The DHSS Local Office Demonstrator, Alvey DHSS Large Demonstrator Project, Dept. of Systems, University of Lancaster.

  • Tyree, A. 1989.Expert Systems in Law. Prentice Hall.

  • Tyree, A. 1992. The Logic Programming debate.Journal of Law and Information Science 3:1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turtle, H. & Croft, W. B. 1991. Evaluation Of an Inference Network-Based Retrieval model.ACM Transactions on Information Systems 9: 3, 187–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Dam, A. 1988. Hypertext '87 Keynote Address 31(7)Communications of the ACM, 891.

  • van Dijk, 1994-The Australian Insurance Law Workstation. LEXeCOM, International Business Communications, Sydney, 1994 (1st ed, plus updates).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Greenleaf, G., Mowbray, A. & van Dijk, P. Representing and using legal knowledge in integrated decision support systems: DataLex WorkStations. Artif Intell Law 3, 97–142 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877696

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877696

Key words

Navigation