Artificial Intelligence and law

The law is an important and scientifically challenging application domain of argumentation. Much of my research in this field has been on the logical aspects of reasoning with defeasible rules (statutory rules but also case rationales or rules from other sources). Read, for instance, my book (a revised and extended version of my PhD thesis). Since legal reasoning often takes place in an adversarial context, I have (with Giovanni Sartor) developed a logic for dialectically constructing and comparing conflicting arguments [Prakken & Sartor 1996]. And since lawyers can disagree about anything, in our system even the standards for comparing arguments are debatable. In [Prakken & Sartor 1998] we used our system in a formalisation of HYPO-style analogical reasoning with precedents.

My current work in AI and Law focuses on three themes.

• The first is dialogue game models of legal procedure. See, for instance, my AI & Law Journal article on A formal model of adjudication dialogues and an application of this model in a case study.
• The second theme is the formal modelling of burden of proof: e.g. my ICAIL-2005 paper with Chris Reed and Douglas Walton, my JURIX-2006, ICAIL-2007, JURIX-2008 and JURIX-2011 papers with Giovanni Sartor and my 2007 AI journal paper with Tom Gordon and Doug Walton.
• Finally, I am interested in the modelling of legal reasoning about evidence. See, for example, my two articles in Law, Probability & Risk (2004, 2007), my 2004 AI & Law Journal paper with Floris Bex, Chris Reed and Doug Walton on formalising evidential argument schemes, my ICAIL-2005 paper on accrual of arguments, an edited volume on Legal Evidence and Proof: Statistics, Stories, Logic, and a double PhD project Making sense of evidence on software support for crime investigation.

Associations, interest groups, resources, blogs, ...

• IAAIL - International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law
• JURIX - Dutch Foundation for Legal Knowledge-based Systems
• BILETA - British & Irish Law, Education and Technology association.
• Legal Informatics Blog, maintained by Robert C. Richards, Jr.

Workshops and Conferences

• Second Summer School on Law and Logic.
  Fiesole, Forence (Italy), July 15-26, 2013.
• 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2013).
  Rome (Italy), 10-14 June 2013.
• 26th International Conference on legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2013).
  Bologna (Italy), 11-13 December 2013.

• International Conferences on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL): St. Louis 2001 Edinburgh 2003 Bologna 2005 Stanford 2007 Barcelona 2009 Pittsburgh 2011
• International Conferences on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX): Amsterdam 2001 London 2002 Utrecht 2003 Berlin 2004 Brussels 2005 Paris 2006 Leiden 2007 Florence 2008 Rotterdam 2009 Liverpool 2010. Vienna 2011 Amsterdam 2012.
• International Conferences on Electronic Government (eGOV)
• International Conferences on eParticipation (ePart).
• BILETA conferences
• Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion Salzburg/Vienna, Austria: 2013 (with links to 2003-2012).
• LEX Summerschools on managing legal sources. Florence/Ravenna (Italy).
• International Workshops on Juris-informatics (JURISIN): 2007, 2008, 2009 2010 2011 2012.
  
• International Conferences on Alternative Methods of Argumentation in Law, Brno, Czech republic: 2011, (2012.
• 1st Amsterdam Privay Conference (APC 2012)
  Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 7-10 October 2012.
• IVR-2011 Workshop on AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems (AICOL 2011).
  Frankfurt (Germany), 15-20 August 2011.
• 2nd International Conference on Quantitative Aspects of Justice and Fairness (QAIJF 2011)
  Fiesole, Florence (Italy), 25-26 February 2011.
• Third International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law (RELAW10).
  Sydney (Australia), 28 September 2010. (An RE-10 Workshop.)
• 4th Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence Techniques (LOAIT 2010).
  Fiesole, near Florence (Italy), 7 July 2010.
• 3rd Workshop on Legal Informatics and Legal Information Technology (LIT 2010).
  Berlin (Germany) 3 May 2010.
• RuleML 2010: The 4th International Web Rule Symposium (with a track on Rules and Norms).
  Washington DC (USA), October 21-23, 2010.
• RuleML 2009: The International RuleML Symposium on Rule Interchange and Applications (with a track on Rules and Norms).
  Las Vegas (USA), November 5-7, 2009.
• 2009 Conference on Electronic Democracy (EDEM-2009)
  Vienna (Austria) 7-9 September 2009.
• 2nd Workshop on Legal Informatics and Legal Information Technology (LIT 2009)
  Poznan (Poland), April 28, 2009.
• Workshop on Regulations Modelling and Deployment (St. ReMod 08)
  Montpellier (France), 16-20 June 2008.
• Conference on Graphic and Visual Representations of Evidence and Inference in Legal Settings
  New York, USA, 28-29 January 2007.
• AAMAS-05 Workshop on Agents, Norms and Institutions for Regulated Multiagent Systems (ANIREM-2005).
  Utrecht, The Netherlands, 25 or 26 July 2005.
• Second International Workshop on Regulatory Ontologies (WORM'04).
  Larnaca, Cyprus, 25-29 October 2004.
• Cardozo Symposium on AI and Judicial Proof
  New York (USA), 30 April 2000.
• Workshop `Dialectical Legal Argument: Formal and Informal Models'.
  Tilburg (The Netherlands), 12 December 1996.

Journals

• Artificial Intelligence and Law
• Journal of Information, Law and Technology

Research projects

• Making sense of evidence.
  • Some press about this project:
    • The Dutch press about Susan van den Braak's PhD thesis on Sensemaking Software for Crime Analysis.
    • The Dutch press about Floris Bex's PhD thesis.
    • Floris Bex's weblog entry for a Cornell law School weblog.
• ANITA. Administrative Normative Information Transaction Agents.
• METALex A Dutch project on XML standards for legal documents.

Systems

• James Popple's SHYSTER; a case-based legal expert system.
• Kees de Vey Mestdagh's ESM, an expert system for Environmental Permit Law (in Dutch).
• Andrew Stranieri and John Zeleznikow's SPLIT UP: predicting judges decisions in divorce cases.
• AI & Law tools in practical use:
  • Joseph Laronge's tools for argument visualisation in court
  • Karl Branting's Protection Order Advisor
  • eLaws Advisors Online legal expert systems of the US Department of Labor
  • Ruleburst (once Softlaw, then Haley, now part of Oracle). A successful international (once Australian) company.

Research Groups

• Centre for Law and ICT, Faculty of Law, University of Groningen.
• Leibniz Center for Law, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam.
• CODEX: Stanford Center for Computers and Law.

People