Beyond knowledge representation: commercial uses for legal knowledge bases

ABSTRACT

At the 1991 Conference, SoftLaw presented a paper dealing with issue which arise in the modelling of legislation as English sentences and rules which a computer can process. Using the techniques outlined in that article, knowledge bases may be constructed to model areas of the law, especially those concerned with public administration. This paper illustrates the incorporation of such knowledge bases into a large scale application. This type of application may be used to drive the business of any organisation which primarily administers a large body of rules (legislative or otherwise). Firstly, the paper gives a background description of the role played by ASSESS, a large scale application whose processing is based around legal knowledge bases. Secondly, the system architecture of ASSESS is examined, focusing on: (i) the overall architecture of the application, and why that architecture was adopted, (ii) the structure of the knowledge based component of the application, and the reasons for that structure.

REFERENCES

• 1: Peter Johnson , David Mead, Legislative knowledge base systems for public administration: some practical issues, Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.108-117, May 1991, Oxford, England [doi>10.1145/112646.112660]
• 2: T. J. M. Bench-Capon , G. O. Robinson , T. W. Routen , M. J. Sergot, Logic programming for large scale applications in law: A formalisation of supplementary benefit legislation, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.190-198, May 27-29, 1997, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/41735.41757]
• 3: See diagram 3. The text on the fight is provided using an embeddable STATUTE Hypertext object.
• 4: Peter Johnson , David Mead, Legislative knowledge base systems for public administration: some practical issues, Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.108-117, May 1991, Oxford, England [doi>10.1145/112646.112660]
• 5: For example Sergot, Cory, Hammond, Kowalski, Kriwaczek and Sadri, 'Formalisation of the British Nationality Acf (1986) 2 Yearbook of Law, Computers and Technology, 40.
• 6: The Entitlements rulebase is of a similar magnitude.
• 7: The hypertext assistance provided to the user was also subject to an independant audit by Pete Marwick (KPMG). See diagram 3.
• 8: T. J. M. Bench-Capon, Knowledge-based systems and legal applications, Academic Press Professional, Inc., San Diego, CA, 1991
• 9: Peter Johnson , David Mead, Legislative knowledge base systems for public administration: some practical issues, Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Artificial intelligence and law, p.108-117, May 1991, Oxford, England [doi>10.1145/112646.112660]
• 10: T. J. M. Bench-Capon, Knowledge-based systems and legal applications, Academic Press Professional, Inc., San Diego, CA, 1991
• 11: Located around New Zealand, in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin.
• 12: Source code from cover.drb, the rulebase used by claim for cover. (drb = Development RuleBase).
• 13: Source code from cover.drb.
• 14: Anthony C. Stylianou , Gregory R. Madey , Robert D. Smith, Selection criteria for expert system shells: a socio-technical framework, Communications of the ACM, v.35 n.10, p.30-48, Oct. 1992 [doi>10.1145/135239.135240]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.1 Applications and Expert Systems
          Subjects: Law

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.2 Types of Systems
          Subjects: Decision support (e.g., MIS)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.4 Knowledge Representation Formalisms and Methods
          Subjects: Representations (procedural and rule-based)

  J. Computer Applications
  J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
      Subjects: Law

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Legal Aspects