An End-to-End Pipeline from Law Text to Logical Formulas

We propose a pipeline for converting natural English law texts into logical formulas via a series of structural representations. Text texts are first parsed using a formal grammar derived from light-weight annotations. An intermediate representation called assembly logic is then used for logical interpretation and supports translations to different back-end logics and visualisations. The approach, while rule-based and explainable, is also robust: it can deliver useful results from day one, but allows subsequent refinements and variations

Discovering Significant Topics from Legal Decisions with Selective Inference

We propose and evaluate an automated pipeline for discovering significant topics from legal decision texts by passing features synthesized with topic models through penalised regressions and post-selection significance tests. The method identifies case topics significantly correlated with outcomes, topic-word distributions which can be manually-interpreted to gain insights about significant topics, and case-topic weights which can be used to identify representative cases for each topic. We demonstrate the method on a new dataset of domain name disputes and a canonical dataset of European Court of Human Rights violation cases. Topic models based on latent semantic analysis as well as language model embeddings are evaluated. We show that topics derived by the pipeline are consistent with legal doctrines in both areas and can be useful in other related legal analysis tasks.Comment: This is an accepted manuscript of work forthcoming in PhilTrans A. Please cite the publisher's version onl

Modular norm models: practical representation and analysis of contractual rights and obligations

Compliance analysis requires legal counsel but is generally unavailable in many software projects. Analysis of legal text using logic-based models can help developers understand requirements for the development and use of software-intensive systems throughout its lifecycle. We outline a practical modeling process for norms in legally binding agreements that include contractual rights and obligations. A computational norm model analyzes available rights and required duties based on the satisfiability of situations, a state of affairs, in a given scenario. Our method enables modular norm model extraction, representation, and reasoning. For norm extraction, using the theory of frame semantics, we construct two foundational norm templates for linguistic guidance. These templates correspond to Hohfeld’s concepts of claim-right and its jural correlative, duty. Each template instantiation results in a norm model, encapsulated in a modular unit which we call a super-situation that corresponds to an atomic fragment of law. For hierarchical modularity, super-situations contain a primary norm that participates in relationships with other norm models. Norm compliance values are logically derived from its related situations and propagated to the norm’s containing super-situation, which in turn participates in other super-situations. This modularity allows on-demand incremental modeling and reasoning using simpler model primitives than previous approaches. While we demonstrate the usefulness of our norm models through empirical studies with contractual statements in open source software and privacy domains, its grounding in theories of law and linguistics allows wide applicability

TÉCNICAS DE APRENDIZADO DE MÁQUINAS APLICADAS À CLASSIFICAÇÃO DE DECISÕES JUDICIAIS

A análise de processos judiciais é uma tarefa cara, que requer muito tempo de juizes e assessores, seja para tomar decisões, seja para classificar de acordo com a jurisprudência vigente. Porém, esse processo é repetitivo e extrair a semântica desse corpus pode ser uma etapa de apoio a esse processo. O objetivo desta pesquisa é desenvolver uma metodologia capaz de gerar automaticamente classificações de documentos jurídicos, utilizando técnicas de processamento de linguagem natural. Primeiramente, coletamos 430.000 sentenças de tribunais trabalhistas brasileiros de 2006 a 2018. Então propomos o uso de técnicas de geração de representação de palavras para representação de dados. Em seguida, usamos técnicas de agrupamento para agrupar semanticamente as decisões judiciais semelhantes. Finalmente, os grupos são usados ​​para criar rótulos artificiais para cada documento. Por fim, utilizamos técnicas de classificação para produzir modelos capazes de captar a semântica do texto judicial. Os resultados são promissores na captura do contexto semântico dos textos jurídicos e, portanto, essa metodologia pode ser utilizada como suporte para o processo decisório brasileiro