JURIS is the computerized legal information system being developed by the Department of Justice for use by its attorneys. The system has been devised not only to help in statutory and case law research, but to provide access to memoranda, briefs, and other work products generated in daily departmental activity. From modest beginnings, JURIS has grown in use and in data-base capabilities. JURIS search strategy, which involves building up sets of data into a search  tree  has proven to be effective for its users. After a year-long evaluation project was completed in May 1975, the results indicated enough user acceptance to justify continuation and expansion of the program. JURIS plans for the future include an enlarged data base and receipt in early 1976 of a specially designed terminal tailored for JURIS and its users. The Department of Justice has an effective legal information resource in JURIS, which continues to grow in effectiveness with data-base expansion and new hardware acquisition

Hambleton, James E.

English

Texas A&M University School of Law

Texas A&M University School of Law Texas A&M Law Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 1-1976 Juris: Legal Information in the Department of Justice James E. Hambleton Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation James E. Hambleton, Juris: Legal Information in the Department of Justice, 69 Law Libr. J. 199 (1976). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/147 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact aretteen@law.tamu.edu. Juris: Legal Information in the Departmentof JusticeBy JAMES E. HAMBLETON*JURIS is the computerized legal information system being developed by theDepartment of Justice for use by its attorneys. The system has been devised notonly to help in statutory and case law research, but to provide access to mem-oranda, briefs, and other work products generated in daily departmental ac-tivity. From modest beginnings, JURIS has grown in use and in data-basecapabilities. JURIS search strategy, which involves building up sets of datainto a search "tree" has proven to be effective for its users. After a year-longevaluation project was completed in May 1975, the results indicated enoughuser acceptance to justify continuation and expansion of the program. JURISplans for the future include an enlarged data base and receipt in early 1976 of aspecially designed terminal tailored for JURIS and its users. The Departmentof Justice has an effective legal information resource in JURIS, which continuesto grow in effectiveness with data-base expansion and new hardware acquisition.In early 1970, the Justice Department beganformulating plans for a computer-based legalinformation retrieval system. This system wasconceived as providing on-line, interactive accessthrough remote terminals to a data base thatwould consist of materials in two major areas.The data base would hold first Federal statu-tory and case law. Secondly, it would containthe "work product" of the Justice Department;that is, briefs, memos, policy directives, proce-dural manuals, and other material generated byJustice Department attorneys in their day-to-daywork routine.It was reasoned that such a system would cutdown needless duplication in brief preparationand legal writing, and would reduce the timespent on certain types of legal research by U.S.attorneys and their assistants. By having the fulltext of previous work on-line, attorneys mightbe able to find a brief on point already pre-pared. This capability would theoretically im-prove the quality and uniformity of the De-partment's legal briefs and opinions, and mightalso aid in speeding up judicial proceedings.The proposed computer system would alsoprovide better communication of Department ofJustice administrative and procedural changes.By including the manuals of rules and regula-tions in the data base, and by updating themas changes occurred, U.S. attorneys in remotefield offices could check easily on exact depart-* Librarian, Arnold & Porter, Washington, D.C.mental procedure. By including the U.S. Codeand the Code of Federal Regulations in the database, they would also have less trouble gettingthe most up-to-date and accurate Federal lawsand regulations.With this overall strategy of providing atotal information system, a pilot project wasstarted in 1971 and JURIS (Justice Retrievaland Inquiry System) evolved. Initially, the testterminal, located in the main justice buildingin Washington, D.C., was hooked up to theNASA/RECON system with a small file of caseabstracts. As the pilot project progressed, JURISbecame independent and fully "in-house." Themain IBM S370/155 computer now in use islocated in downtown Washington. The projectis under the supervision of the Legal Informa-tion Systems Group of the Office of Managementand Finance of the Department of Justice.For the next 2 years (1972 and 1973) JURISremained very much in the experimental stage.In fact, until 1974 the only file that was at allproductive was that of the U.S. Code. In mid-1974, there were still only a half dozen termi-nals operational; JURIS was used mostly fordemonstrations, training, and an occasionalsearch request. The data base was still too lim-ited to be of much real research value, con-taining only a few hundred selected memo-randa and briefs, a few score of volumes ofU.S. Reports, and the code.At this time it was decided that a thoroughevaluation of automated retrieval systems beundertaken so that the future of JURIS couldLAW LIBRARY JOURNALbe better charted. This evaluation project wouldextend from July 1974 through May 1975, andwould assess the operational and economic ad-vantages of automated retrieval systems for legalinformation.Since the JURIS data base was so limited,the project included a contract, with Mead DataCorporation for access to the LEXIS system. Bycontracting for a subscription to LEXIS, halfof JURIS proposed capability could be satisfied.With LEXIS providing Federal case law, theJURIS people could concentrate on loadingtheir data base with "work product" material(memos, briefs, etc.). It was little trouble tomake the two systems compatible. From thesame remote terminal, an attorney could accessLEXIS case law or JURIS memos or briefs.The evaluation project, then, began in mid-1974 with both the LEXIS and JURIS databases available. Mead Data supplied the De-partment of Justice with its CRT (cathode raytube) terminals. From this point on JURIS/LEXIS use grew rapidly. LEXIS aleady had asolid case law data base, so Justice attorneyswere able to conduct productive research im-mediately. As the JURIS data base was loadedwith more internal departmental paperwork, it,too, became productive.The Department began an expanded trainingprogram as more terminals became available.From October 1974 through April 1975, U.S.attorneys and assistants from the various fieldoffices were flown into Washington and NewYork for intensive 2-day training sessions.Twenty-four people a week were trained inWashington, and the same number every otherweek in New York. Thus, at its peak, the staffwas training nearly 100 attorneys a month inWashington and 48 per month in New York.From May through June of 1975, these trainingsessions continued in Washington. As of July,a "circuit riding" program was implementedwith staff trainers sent for on-the-spot instruc-tion to one of the field offices. There were 21terminals in operation when circuit riding be-gan. As of mid-August, this extensive programhad resulted in 900 Department of Justice law-yers trained to use the LEXIS system, with 700of these also trained to access JURIS. Thisnumber was out of a total attorney populationof roughly 3,000. Almost a third, then, of theattorneys employed by the Department of Jus-tice were familiar with the system. A positivebyproduct of the training sessions was user sug-gestions on the kind of material that should beincluded in the JURIS data base. Many of thesesuggestions were followed so that JURIS hasbecome tailored to its users' needs. This obvi-ously has increased its day-to-day effectivenessfor many of the attorneys.During the evaluation period, the JURISdata base was being fed a daily diet of Depart-ment "work product." This information wasprocessed by various firms with which the Jus-tice Department has contracted. By mid-August,over 3,000 briefs had been entered into the database.At the end of the evaluation period, the re-sults indicated massive user acceptance: 99 per-cent of the attorneys surveyed recommendedthat the Department continue the use of auto-mated research. A large majority also reportedgreat time savings and more satisfactory researchwhen using the computer. This evaluation waspresented to the Deputy Attorney General, whoapproved plans for further development of theJURIS system and authorized a new terminaldesigned specifically for JURIS and its users.This new terminal will eliminate some interfaceproblems between the user and terminal thatwere discovered in the training sessions. Thefunction or command keys will have Englishwords substituted for some of the algebraic sym-bols currently used on the key caps. These newterminals are scheduled for delivery sometimein the spring.When the contract with Mead Data expiredat the end of the evaluation period, the Depart-ment of Justice wanted to extend the LEXISsubscription so that its data base would remainavailable. A month-by-month extension wasgranted. However, in mid-August, when MeadData and the Department were still unable toagree to terms for a new contract, the LEXISsubscription was cancelled, resulting in the lossof the LEXIS data base, particularly its Federalcase law files. As was pointed out, most case lawceased to be loaded into the JUR.IS data basewhen the Department contracted with LEXIS.So now JURIS has been left with very littleFederal case law. One remedy for this has beento borrow the case law data base from FLITE(Federal Legal Information Through Electron-ics), an old Air Force project with a strongFederal file, including the full-text opinions ofthe U.S. Reports. The FLITE people have sentmagnetic tapes of this library to Washingtonto be loaded into JURIS. The FLITE libraryVol. 69JURIS SYSTEMwill become a part of the JURIS data base nextspring.Since the Department of Justice decided tocontinue and enhance JURIS, other legal databases or information services are constantly un-der study for possible inclusion into the JURISsystem. Negotiations are on-going with otherlegal information systems with possibilities ofeither buying data or subscribing to services be-ing explored. Any data base or system thatmight enhance JURIS or make it more effec-tive for its users is considered.At the present time, JURIS contains indi-vidual subject files that are combined in dif-ferent ways to form cumulative files. Some ofthese cumulative files are in turn combined toform libraries. A user can access a single file,combined files, or a whole library. The majorlibrary is that which contains the briefs andmemoranda, called the "DOJ" library. It con-sists of the Federal Condemnation Handbookfile, and the following three combined files. Thefirst combined file is the "Briefs" file, whichconsists of the individual files of selected So-licitor General, civil division, tax division, andantitrust division briefs and pleadings. Thesecond combined file, the "Tax" file, containsselected tax division briefs and the file of in-ternal memoranda of the tax division. The At-torney General's numbered memoranda file andthe file of the U.S. Attorney's Bulletin, Pointsto Remember, make up the third combined fileof the major "DOJ" library.There are four more libraries. The "Claims"library contains two individual files. This firsthas U.S. Court of Claims Decisions, volumes134-200. The second is the "hot" claims file,consisting of court decisions from the first fewmonths of the current year. The "Propat" li-brary deals with the proposed changes in thepatent laws. Each file in this library containssimply the Senate bill proposing such changes.The "Statlaw" library contains four individualfiles: Public Laws of the 93d Congress, the U.S.Code (1970 ed.) with Supplement II, recentExecutive Orders, and selected titles of theCode of Federal Regulations. The last libraryis the "Code" library, and simply contains thePublic Law file and the U.S. Code file.The arrangement of these individual files intodifferent combinations provides great flexibilityfor the user. Searches are initiated in JURISby signing on at the terminal and indicatingwhich files one wishes to search. The user thenformulates his search strategy using Booleanlogic.' One selects words that deal with thesubject to be searched, and combines them withthe Boolean connectors "and," "or," and "butnot."When these key words are typed into theterminal, all documents in the particular fileaccessed are instantaneously scanned for thoseparticular words within the "and," "or," and"but not" parameters specified. Also, thesearcher indicates whether he wants the keywords to appear within the document as awhole, or within a single sentence. Soon theuser will also have the capability of specifyingthat the key words be within a range of a cer-tain number of sentences. The terminal CRTdisplays the number of documents satisfyingthese requirements, and also the number ofpoints of incidence of the search words in thedocuments.Once this numbered set of documents is es-tablished, the user can then retrieve any oneitem from this set. This is done by simply call-ing for the first item in the set, or calling fora list of the citations of all documents in theset. An item can then be called for by number.The searcher can also ask for a KWIC displayof a document. This is a key-word-in-contextwhere the search words and a specific numberof words on either side of them are displayed.This helps the searcher see if his key words doin fact call up the type of document in whichhe is interested.Another important manipulation available inJURIS is the capability to call for the keywords on the full text page of a document.When the searcher calls up an item, he can seehow many screen pages the document contains,as this is indicated in the upper right handcorner of the screen. If he then calls for thekey word on a page, the next full text screenpage containing his search terms is displayed;this may be a hundred screen pages into thedocument. The searcher, then, is saved goingfrom page to page through the full text to lo-cate his search words. He does have that option,though; he can go through any item page bypage either forward or backward. The searchwords do not necessarily have to be nouns or1 George Boole, a 19th century logician and math-ematician, developed symbolic logic using algebraicsigns; his binary logic is the basis of modem com-puter systems.LAW LIBRARY JOURNALVverbs, either. The user may remember a judge'sname or a numerical citation. Using these assearch terms will still compile a set of docu-ments with those unique characteristics.The computer, then, compiles sets of items.If the searcher wishes to modify his search strat-egy, he merely types in new terms. Another setof documents is compiled, separate from thefirst. Likewise, if the user decides to branch off,he can go to a third or fourth set of items.It is at this point that JURIS is unique. Atany time the whole search history can be dis-played on the terminal, with all the sets of doc-uments listed. At any time the user can go backto an earlier set without erasing those sets com-piled later. Other systems allow a searcher tomodify his tactics from level to level, but atany point, if he retraces his steps, all informa-tion collected beyond the point to which hereturns is lost. The JURIS searcher may at anytime return to an earlier set and then returnto the last set of items compiled without losingany data.The sets of items compiled by JURIS are alsoable to be manipulated in other ways. Two setsmay be combined to form a unique third set.In other words, instead of typing in all the keywords from set one and all the key words fromset two, the user simply indicates "set one andset two" and a third set of items with therestrictions of both sets is created. This capa-bility is extremely useful in creating sets ofsynonyms. The searcher merely types in all thesynonyms for a particular concept, and at anytime may combine this set with any othersdown the line to make sure that he is not miss-ing a document only because it contains a syn-onym of his search word. Likewise, this capa-bility is useful in solving spelling problems.Thus the search strategy used at the terminalis different than that of other systems. Insteadof modifying the search in one direction only,either narrowing or expanding it, the JURISuser is able to create a search "tree." By dis-playing the search history, he is able to seewhich branches he has taken and retrace hisstrategy or simply start off on a new tangent,without fear of losing the sets of items he hasalready compiled.The search history is kept until the user signsoff. At that time, the user has the option toretain his search history. In addition, a highspeed printer at the terminal provides hardcopy of any screen display so the user may re-tain any data for further analysis.JURIS, then, provides a flexible system fordocument searching. By tailoring the system toa very specific group of users with clear-cut in-formation needs, the Department of Justice hasdeveloped an effective information tool. Thissystem provides not only a legal research capa-bility, but also, by having departmental policy,rules, and regulations on-line, provides otherimportant information services to the personnelin the Department. When fully operational inthe spring, with new terminals and a solid caselaw file once again in the data base, JURISshould be quite an impressive system.Vol. 69

Juris: Legal Information in the Department of Justice

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Juris: Legal Information in the Department of Justice

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