Examples of Specialized Legal Metadata Adapted to the Digital Environment, from the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations

Abstract

Among print-based U.S. legal information resources, specialized tools that link discrete types of metadata substantially improve the efficiency of legal research. Many of these tools could be of considerable utility in the electronic information environment. However, many such tools require thorough redesign in order to make them optimally usable by digital systems. This paper presents a case study of one such tool - the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations’ Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules, which links each statute to its corresponding regulations. Through examples of XML and RDF/OWL markup, the paper shows how such a tool might be adapted successfully to the electronic domain.

Keywords: Legal knowledge representation, legal descriptive metadata, specialized legal metadata, regulatory information systems, administrative law information systems

JEL Classification: K49