Computers and Law – the Central Role of Legal Knowledge

Abstract

In the beginning of the 1980s, when computers became available in the legal discipline, researchers at first concentrated on possibilities to let these systems take over certain legal tasks, such as decision making and delivering advice. Not many of the projects undertaken in these early years led to successful applications, however. One reason for that was that the software tools available at the time had their limitations. The main bottleneck, however, was the legal knowledge incorporated in these systems. Jurimetrical research projects aimed at increasing the amount of available (empirical) knowledge, often with interesting results. The importance of knowledge for the legal discipline has become apparent by the recent attention for the subject of legal knowledge management within this field.

Keywords: Legal knowledge, knowledge based systems, jurimetrics, content integration