JON BING
TRYGVE HARVOLD

Legal Decisions and
Information Systems

UNIVERSITETSFORLAGET
Oslo 1977

Legal Decisions and Information Systems is a comprehensive book about computer-based systems for legal information retrieval. Such systems are today in common use, and knowledge of their possibilities and limitations is already of great importance to the modern lawyer.

In this book, the authors give a systematic introduction to legal text retrieval systems, spanning from technical discussions to political implications. The book is divided into four parts. in the first part, the interrelationship between the legal decision process and the use of an information system is discussed. The second part gives a historical survey of international developments, describing all important systems and projects. The third part discusses the principles of text retrival systems, gives the reader an introduction to the available retrieval strategies, and presents a survey of the research on the performance of such information systems. In the fourth part, the relationship between the ideal of "the rule of law" and information systems is discussed.

This book has been awarded a Norwegian Royal Academic Gold Medal.

The authors are well known for their work and their papers, singly or jointly, within the field of legal informatics. Jon Bing is an assistant professor at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Trygve Harvold, formely of the same institution, is presently a consultant to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice.

UNIVERSITETSFORLAGET

ISBN 82-00-05031-9

To

Knut S. Selmer

INNHOLD

I LEGAL DECISIONS

1 A model of the legal decision process
1.1 PERFORMANCE OF LEGAL DECISION PROCESSES
1.2 A MODEL OF THE LEGAL DECISION PROCESS
1.2.1 Introduction
1.2.2 Initiation
1.2.3 Legal problems
1.2.4 The probable facts of the case
1.2.5 The proven facts of the case
1.2.6 Legal sources
1.2.7 Availability factors
1.2.8 The retrieval process
1.2.9 Interpretation and harmonization
1.2.10 The selection of norms within the normative interval
1.2.11 The result - and feedback from the result
1.3 A NOTE ON RELEVANCE

2 Typical user situations and information systems
2.1 USERS ORIENTED TOWARD NORMS
2.2 USERS ORIENTED TOWARD FACTS
2.3 USERS ORIENTED TOWARD FORMS

3 Focusing on reference retrieval

II COMPUTER-BASED LEGAL INFORMATION RETRIEVAL - A HISTORICAL SURVEY

4 Beginnings
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 BACKGROUND
4.2.1 Libraries and indexes
4.2.2 Jurimetrics
4.3 THE INTIATIVE
4.3.1 The Pittsburgh Project
4.3.2 Aspen Systems Corporation
4.3.3 From LITE to FLITE
4.3.4 The Oxford Experiments
4.4 A PROFUSION OF PROJECTS
4.4.1 Introduction
4.4.2 Law Research Services, Incorporated
4.4.3 RIRA: Reports and Information Retrieval Activity
4.4.4 JURIS: Justice Retrieval and Inquiry System

5 Europe
5.1.1 Introduction
5.1.2 European co-operation
     (1) The Council of Europe
     (2) INTERDOC
5.1.3 CELEX
5.2 BELGIUM
5.3 FRANCE
5.3.1 Introduction
5.3.2 CEDIJ
5.3.3 IRETIJ
5.3.4 CRIDON de Lyon
5.3.5 DARIUS
5.4 ITALY
5.4.1 Introduction
5.4.2 The Italgiure System
5.5 SWEDEN
5.6 WESTERN GERMANY
5.6.1 Introduction
5.6.2 Juradat
5.6.3 DATEV - Steuerrechtsdatenbank
5.6.4 Bundessozialgericht
5.6.5 JURIS
5.6.6 Concluding remarks
5.7 UNITED KINGDOM
5.7.1 STATUS
5.7.2 QUOBIRD
5.7.3 Concluding remarks

6 A final look at North America
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 DATUM
6.3 QL-SYSTEMS
6.4 LEXIS

7 Five reference retrieval systems
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 STAIRS
7.2.1 Characteristics
7.2.2 An example
7.3 IMDOC
7.3.1 Characteristics
7.3.2 An example
7.4 GOLEM
7.4.1 Characteristics
7.4.2 An example
7.5 STATUS
7.5.1 Characteristics
7.5.2 An example
7.6 CONTEXT
7.6.1 Characteristics
7.6.2 An example

III PERFORMANCE OF TEXT RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS

8 Retrieval systems
8.1 INTRODUCTION

9 Retrieval performance
9.1. INTRODUCTION
9.2. OPERATIONS-ORIENTED CRITERIA
9.3. RELEVANCE-ORIENTED CRITERIA
9.4. THE CONCEPT OF RELEVANCE
9.4.1 Types of relevance: formal, content, and subjective relevance
9.4.2 The nature of relevance: Absolute and relative relevance
9.4.3 The grading of relevance: grading by degrees or binary grading?
9.5 THE RETRIEVAL PROCESS
9.5.1 Fact retrieval
9.5.2 Reference retrieval

10 Search strategies
10.1 INTRODUCTION
10.2 SELECTION OF DATA BASE: THE QUESTION OF COVERAGE
10.2.1 Information needs
10.2.2 The hierarchy of legal sources
10.2.3 The type dimension
10.2.4 The time dimension
10.2.5 The need for a segmented data base
10.3 SELECTION OF DOCUMENT REPRESENTATION: THE QUESTION OF INDEXING
10.3.1 Representation by keywords
10.3.2 Representation by text
10.4. FORMULATION OF QUERY: THE QUESTION OF PERFORMANCE
10.4.1 Identifying conditions necessary to relevance
10.4.2 Specifying terms
10.4.3 Aids in specifying terms
10.4.4 Controlling the quantity of output
10.5 SELECTION OF COMMAND AND SEARCH LANGUAGE: THE QUESTION OF USER EFFORT
10.5.1 Performance and flexibility
10.5.2 Imperative and responsive dialogues
10.5.3 Feedback indicators
10.5.4 Form of output
10.5.5 Matching functions
     (1) Identity functions
     (2) Nearness functions
     (3) Snowball functions

11 Research regarding theperformance of retrieval systems
11.1 INTRODUCTION
11.2 GENERAL RESEARCH
11.2.1 The Aslib-Cranfield Projects: 1960-1966
11.2.2 The SMART experiments 1964-1971.
11.2.3 The MEDLARS evaluation: 1966-1967
11.2.4 The "Comparative Systems Laboratory Experiments" Project: 1963-1968.
11.3 RESEARCH REGARDING LEGAL SYSTEMS
11.3.1 The Joint ABF/IBM Project: 1966-1967.
11.3.2 The Oxford Experiment: 1963-1965
11.3.3. The Responsa project: 1967-1969
11.3.4 The NORIS program, 1972-1976

IV THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEGAL DECISIONS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

12 THE "RULE OG LAW"
12.1 The "rule of law" as a justification for improvement in legal information systems
12.1.2 Elements of "the rule of law"
12.1.3. The legal information system
     (1) The producers of legal sources.
     (2) Distribution routines.
     (3) Retrieval systems.
12.2 PREDICTABILITY
12.2.1 Introduction
12.2.2 The alerting function
12.2.3 Coverage discrimination
12.2.4 Transparency
12.2.5 Control of representativity
12.2.6 Conclusion
12.3 THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY
12.3.1 Introduction
12.3.2 Representative coverage
12.3.3 The retrieval system
12.3.4 Legal unity
12.4 DISCRETION VERSUS PREDICTABILITY
12.4.1 Introduction
12.4.2 The effects of more frequent use of a type of legal source
12.4.3 The effects of increased rank
12.4.4 Conclusion
12.5 OBJECTIVITY
12.5.1 Introduction
12.5.2 Coverage
12.5.3 The problem of document representation
12.5.4 The influence on the law in action
12.5.5 Conclusion
12.6 TIME VERSUS QUALITY
12.6.1 Introduction
12.6.2 Research time - balancing turnaround time
12.6.3 Transparency and workload
Literature
Selected Subject Index

HOME
NEXT PAGE