Charles S. Saxon

More IA needed in AI: interpretation assistance for coping with the problem of multiple structural interpretations

Legal rules are characteristically suseptiple to multiple structural interpretations, but current legal expert systems embody only one of the many possible interpretations. One approach to coping with this problem of multiple structural interpretations is by interpretation assistance (IA) systems. A prototype IA system called MULTINT is described and illustrated in this article.

Better language, better thought, better communication: the A-Hohfeld language for legal analysis

A-HOHFELD is a representational language used in MINT (Multiple INTerpretation) Interpretation-Assistance (expert) systems for precisely expressing alternative structural interpretations of sets of legal rules. It draws heavily upon the timlamental legal conceptions formulated by Wesley N. HoMeld at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. In the current version of AHOHFELD the original conceptions have been modified and extended in seeking to define a language sufficiently robust to express all LEGAL RELATIONS and all changes in legal states of affairs. Hohfeld emphasized the use of fundamental legal conceptions in the analysis of judicial reasoning, elsewhere we have shown the use of A-HOHFELD for the analysis of sets of statutory rules, and here we illustrate its use in thinking about legal doctrine. This use of A-HOHFELD is offered as a possible example of where fluency in a more precise and complete language might have facilitated an earlier recognition of remedial alternatives that have apparently only recently been appearing in legal literature and judicial decisions. To the extent that AHOHFELD so strengthens legal analysis, it farther exemplifies how work on problems of artificial intelligence in computer science tiuittidly feeds back to law and illustrates how precision in language contributes to thought as well as communication.

Achieving fluency in modernized and formalized Hohfeld: puzzles and games for the LEGAL RELATIONS Language

A significant refinement has been made in the AHOHFELD representation language, linlciig it realistically to decisions being made in the legal system, and it has been renamed to become the LEGAL RELATIONS Language. Similar changes have been made in the underlying AHOHFELD logic, which has become the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS. A series of 27 puzzles and games, designed to enable legal problem solvers to become fluent in the LEGAL RELATIONS Language, are described and illustrated briefly in this article. More detailed presentation of the Play-A-Round puzzles and the Clever Plaintiff and the Legal Argument games are available at Internet site: http://thinkers.law.umich.edu.

Object-oriented recursive descent parsing in C#

An object-oriented recursive descent parsing technique that is suitable for use in advanced programming classes where no language theory is required is presented. The C# code for a calculator is shown as an example.

Application of enriched deontic legal relations: Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 7(a), pleadings

Deontic LEGAL RELATIONS are quantified OBLIGATION or PERMISSION statements in the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS. Such LEGAL RELATIONS stem from Hohfelds right-duty-privilege-no-right set of fundamental legal conceptions. The four Hohfeldian roots are enriched by more detailed specification in terms of quantifier, deontic, action and temporal logics. The 1600 enriched deontic LEGAL RELATIONS defined in the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS are both more specific and more discriminating than their Hohfeldian predecessors. A brief summary is presented of the 800 active enriched deontic LEGAL RELATIONS along with other parts of the LEGAL RELATIONS Language involved in the analysis of the important Rule 7(a) of the Federal Rules of Civic Procedure dealing with pleadings.