Case-based reasoning with precedent models: Preliminary report

Formalizing case-based reasoning is an important topic in AI and Law, which has been discussed using various approaches, such as formal dialogue games, abstract dialectical frameworks. In this paper we model case-based reasoning by using the formal argument semantics of case models. With the precedent models we present, the validity of legal arguments in the case-based reasoning process can be shown formally. We also present a case study of precedent models in a real legal domain and evaluate the validity of arguments in case-based reasoning

Thirty years of Artificial Intelligence and Law:the second decade

The first issue of Artificial Intelligence and Law journal was published in 1992. This paper provides commentaries on nine significant papers drawn from the Journal’s second decade. Four of the papers relate to reasoning with legal cases, introducing contextual considerations, predicting outcomes on the basis of natural language descriptions of the cases, comparing different ways of representing cases, and formalising precedential reasoning. One introduces a method of analysing arguments that was to become very widely used in AI and Law, namely argumentation schemes. Two relate to ontologies for the representation of legal concepts and two take advantage of the increasing availability of legal corpora in this decade, to automate document summarisation and for the mining of arguments

AI & Law, logic and argument schemes

This paper reviews the history of AI & Law research from the perspective of argument schemes. It starts with the observation that logic, although very well applicable to legal reasoning when there is uncertainty, vagueness and disagreement, is too abstract to give a fully satisfactory classification of legal argument types. It therefore needs to be supplemented with an argument-scheme approach, which classifies arguments not according to their logical form but according to their content, in particular, according to the roles that the various elements of an argument can play. This approach is then applied to legal reasoning, to identify some of the main legal argument schemes. It is also argued that much AI & Law research in fact employs the argument-scheme approach, although it usually is not presented as such. Finally, it is argued that the argument-scheme approach and the way it has been employed in AI & Law respects some of the main lessons to be learnt from Toulmin's The Uses of Argument

Uses of the argumentation in the negotiation

In the recent literature on conflict resolution tends to underline negotiation model based on the argument or dialogue. Exchange between different styles of argument some trends have emerged in the rhetoric applied to the law, especially in procedural law. During the last decade researchers have recognized the value of the argument to understand various problems of jurisprudence in cases of conflict and strife. This paper proposes a complementary design to the analysis of the negotiation process based on debate and dialogue. It advocates a theory of argumentation in negotiation processes for instances where rational agents use strategies unpredictable with incomplete information.Persuasion, argumentation, negotiation, conflicts and science social.