Bell on the Future of Legal Research

Professor Dr. John Bell of the University of Cambridge has published The Future of Legal Research, Legal Information Management, 12(4), 314-317 (2012).

Here is the abstract:

This article is based on a presentation given by John Bell at the annual conference of The Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) held in Bristol in September 2012. His talk reflects the immediate challenges facing law schools, academic lawyers and the legal publishing industry in the light of the recent Finch Report and the subsequent response by the Government whereby it has adopted an open access policy to publicly funded research.’

Chung, Mowbray, and Greenleaf on Searching Legal Information in Multiple Asian Languages

Philip Chung of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, Professor Andrew Mowbray of University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Law, and Professor Dr. Graham Greenleaf of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, have published Searching Legal Information in Multiple Asian Languages, forthcoming in Legal Information Management.

Here is the abstract:

In this article the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed, the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII’s open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

Rickard-Clarke on Access to Justice and Legal Information in Ireland

Commissioner Patricia T. Rickard-Clarke of the Law Reform Commission of Ireland has published The Irish Legal System, Law Libraries and Legal Information: Access to Justice: Accessibility, Legal Information Management, 11(3), 159-164 (2011). Here is the abstract:

Patricia T Rickard-Clarke writes on the complex issues relating to access to justice for the citizens of Ireland. Her article addresses the practical need for consolidation of legislation and the issues of making law accessible in a form that people can understand. The article also takes into account comparative developments in other jurisdictions.

Meredith on OSCOLA: A UK Standard for Legal Citation

Sandra Meredith, M.A., of the Oxford University Faculty of Law, has published OSCOLA: A UK Standard for Legal Citation, Legal Information Management, 11, 111-114 (2011). Here is the abstract:

OSCOLA, the Oxford Standard for the Citation Of Legal Authorities, was first devised in 2000. The fourth edition, published in November 2010, includes for the first time guidelines for citing Scottish, Irish and Welsh cases and legislation, historical legal sources and new media such as blogs. It also provides more extensive general advice about using quotations, managing and cross-referencing footnotes and organising bibliographies and tables of cases and legislation. OSCOLA can be used in conjunction with bibliographic software such as Endnote and is becoming the UK national standard for legal citation.

Danner and Winterton: IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management

Senior Associate Dean Richard A. Danner of the Duke University School of Law and Professor Jules Winterton of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies have published The IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management (2011).

Here is the publisher’s description:

Around the world, legal information managers, law librarians and other legal information specialists work in many settings: law schools, private law firms, courts, government, and public law libraries of various types. They are characterized by their expertise in working with legal information in its many forms, and by their work supporting legal professionals, scholars, or students training to become lawyers. In an ever-shrinking world and a time of unprecedented technological change, the work of legal information managers is challenging and exciting, calling on specialized knowledge and skills, regardless of where in the world they practice their profession. Their role within legal systems contributes substantially to the administration of justice and the rule of law. This International Handbook addresses the policy and strategic issues with which legal information managers and law librarians need to engage in the context of the diverse legal environments in which they work. It provides resources, analysis, and considered studies on an international basis for seasoned professionals, those about to enter the field, and anyone interested in the evolution of legal information in the twenty-first century.

Call for Papers: JURIX 2011

A call for papers — with submission deadline of 5 September 2011 — has been issued for JURIX 2011: The 24th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, to be held 14-16 December 2011 at the University of Vienna, in Vienna, Austria.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

• Support for lawyers, in legal reasoning, document drafting, negotiation;
• Support for the production and management of legislation, in agenda setting, policy analysis, drafting, workflow management, monitoring implementation;
• Support for the judiciary, in application of the law, analysis of evidence, management of cases;
• Support for police activities, in forensic inquiries, search and evaluation of evidence, management of investigations;
• Support for public administration, in applying regulations and managing information;
• Support for the acquisition, management or use of legal knowledge, using rules, cases, neural networks, intelligent agents or other methods;
• Systems and methods to support policies and legal issues for social networks;
• Retrieval of legal information;
• Legal education;
• Digital-rights management;
• Alternative dispute resolution, particularly on-line;
• Regulatory compliance and compliance of business processes;
• Theoretical foundations for the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the legal domain;
• Models of legal knowledge, including concepts (legal ontologies), rules, cases, principles, values and procedures;
• Legal inference and argumentation;
• Verification and validation of legal knowledge systems;
• Management of legal information in the semantic web;
• XML standards for legal documents, including legislative, judicial, administrative acts as well as private documents, such as contracts;
• Modelling the legal interactions of autonomous agents and digital institutions;
• Methods for managing organizational change when introducing legal knowledge systems;
• Evaluation of systems using advanced informatics techniques in legal applications;
• Interdisciplinary applications of legal informatics methods and systems.

For more information, please see the call for papers.

HT Professor Dr. Henry Prakken.

Haydée Di Iorio et al. on Ontologies, ICTs and Law: The International Ontojuris Project

Professor Dr. Ana Haydée Di Iorio, Bibiana Beatriz Luz Clara, Esq., and Professor Dr. Roberto Giordano Leren, all of Universidad FASTA Facultad de Ingeniería, have published Ontologies, ICTs and Law: The International Ontojuris Project, in LOAIT 2010: Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence Techniques, European University Institute, Fiesole, Florence, Italy, July 7th, 2010, at 95-102 (Enrico Francesconi, Simonetta Montemagni, Piercarlo Rossi, and Daniela Tiscornia eds., 2010). Here is the abstract:

This article presents the experience of the International Ontojuris Project, modeled and developed to search and retrieve multilingual legal information based on ontologies and on the Universal Networking Language (UNL). It also presents the issue of multilingual information management, the importance of data processing from the semantic point of view and the possibility of semantic interoperability between systems, basically on Web search engines.

Lippell & Jordan on The Metadata Model for Directgov

Helen Lippell and Peter Jordan, both of the U.K. Government’s Directgov online portal, have published The Metadata Model for Directgov, 10 Legal Information Management 7-9 (no. 1) (2010). Directgov provides access to a great deal of legal information. Here is the abstract:

Peter Jordan and Helen Lippell describe the role of metadata, including taxonomies, in re-designing the flagship government website, Directgov.

Marley on Metadata at the UK Parliament: Use of Controlled Vocabularies and Indexing

Elizabeth Marley, of The U.K. House of Commons Library, Indexing and Data Management Section, has published Metadata at the UK Parliament: Use of Controlled Vocabularies and Indexing, 10 Legal Information Management 1-3 (no. 1) (2010). Here is the abstract:

Elizabeth Marley describes the addition of subject and other indexing metadata at the UK Parliament, contributing to the internal databases and to services to the public on the Parliamentary website, and the operation of the thesauri and controlled vocabularies used in enriching Parliamentary content.