Building a digital lawyer?
Stanford/EPA research project experiments with computerizing legal interpretation
By
Digital Government Research Center

• Concept tags generate links dynamically to supporting documents, which otherwise do not reference one other. As new supporting documents are added, old text is automatically linked based on the critical concepts they share.
• Reference tags link provisions in one rule to subsections they depend upon in another. For example, a business may be asked to comply with section 40, as stipulated in subsection 29, parts A through F. The key here is that the reference tags specify what they are linking to, rather than where. Thus the system is not bound to a particular source, but can look anywhere for the appropriate reference.
• Definition tags translate specialized words and acronyms into plain English. The huge volume of jargon in federal rules often makes them incomprehensible to the novice. "You're searching 'used oil management,' but you don't know the lingo yet, you might think a burner is for cooking, instead of an oil burner," Heenan explained.
• Logic metadata tags are what makes the third major Regnet component - the interactive compliance assistance tool - possible.

Using a Web interface, the user selects a provision. At each step, the system - using the Otter automated-deduction program (public freeware from the Argonne National Laboratory) - asks the user for input to clarify whether or not he is in compliance. The system automatically inserts hyperlinks to referenced provisions, which can be opened in a new window.

It also displays key technical terms in green text; the text can be "moused over" to display other popup windows with definitions. Key conceptual phrases can be displayed and linked to related documents. The business owner can choose to read a regulation at the provision, section or subsection level.

How it all works is best shown by example:

A business owner logs on to the system and searches for used oil management. A question pops up: Is the used oil stored in a surface impoundment or a waste pile? The business owner answers yes, no or I don't know.

The system then selects an answer - for example, a rule provision specifying when used oil surface impoundments are prohibited, say, as a dust suppressant. A popup window displays the EPA's definition of used oil. The business owner also is prodded to pursue related searches on terms such as waste pile, surface impoundment, dust suppressant etc.

The final result: the business owner is found in or out of compliance.

What Regnet does not do is take the place of a lawyer, Law says. "We're not really interpreting the entire regulation," he says. "We are developing a framework."

"Legal reasoning is much more complex than the reasoning we're doing," says Regnet researcher Shawn Kerrigan. "We're helping to identify issues, as opposed to interpreting the law."