computational_law

Project Stories
Making the Case for Expediting Legal Disputes with
Computational Law
March 2015
Topics: Law Enforcement, Law, Informatics, Artificial Intelligence, Decision
Support Systems
Could a computer one day rule on
whether or not you've broken the
law? Absolutely, says a group of law
school academics and industry
technologists examining the topic.
Take the case of a traffic violation. In
the future, your car may be equipped
with technology that analyzes driving
conditions (traffic, road surface,
weather) in real time to determine the most appropriate speed limit in any
situation. Such a car would alert you—the driver--to the recommended limit.
However, it would also report you if you flagrantly disregarded its suggestion.
Exceed the recommended limit by 10 miles per hour or more, and the next text
you receive might be a traffic ticket.
Making such a scenario a reality would require an entirely new field of law.
Termed "computational law," this futuristic area of jurisprudence refers to the
automation or semi-automation of some form of legal reasoning, whether that
be rule based, data driven, or both. The speeding ticket example aside,
computational law is not envisioned as a way to keep people in line. Its main
purpose would be to provide automated legal analysis in situations where
multiple administrative layers are the norm, such as building codes, regulatory
proceedings and other administrative and legal matters.
A new field of law is emerging based on automated legal reasoning
that may provide an efficient and cost-effective way to relieve
clogged court dockets and administrative backlogs. MITRE is
partnering with two top law schools to explore its applications.
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Computational law is being pioneered by a few forward thinkers, such as
Stanford University Law School, Michigan State University College of Law, and
MITRE's Judiciary Engineering and Modernization Center FFRDC, which is
sponsored by the Federal Judiciary. The three entities have formed a
partnership to explore the field.
Law Schools and MITRE Explore New Legal Territory
Computational law might help alleviate clogged court dockets and address
backlogs at administrative agencies where automated legal reasoning could
rapidly resolve simple cases. Any executive agency with an administrative law
process potentially could see significant improvements in both efficiency and
cost.
"This is not like we're opening the door to Judge Dredd,” says MITRE's Brad
Brown, portfolio director for the Center for Judicial Informatics, Science &
Technology, which is an arm of JEMC. He's referring to the comic-book
character whose power to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute
criminals is often equated with a police state. "This is about providing a
speedy, cost-effective, and fair remedy to people who might otherwise have to
wait years for a resolution, given the glut of cases swamping our judicial
systems. Any such adjudication would have human oversight."
In the spring of 2014, Brown and Chuck Horowitz, manager of innovation for
JEMC, began working with law professors at CodeX, Stanford's Center for
Legal Informatics. They were among about 20 global experts asked to
participate in a Codex workshop on the most pressing technical issues in
computational law. MITRE is now hosting the follow-on working group
collaborations on Handshake, our own social networking tool. Michigan State
came on board in November 2014.
"The age of computational law is just beginning," says Daniel Katz, associate
professor of law at Michigan State and an affiliated faculty member at CodeX.
"The Internet of Things may end up connecting 50 billion things by 2020.
Computational law is in some ways a logical extension of this unstoppable
market trend.
"Brad and I can imagine a future in which computational law is not only part
of a service offering, but it's also embedded in many of these connected
products."

A Resolution Platform with a "Fairness" Engine
One early example of online adjudication is Modria, a dispute resolution
platform that has helped eBay and PayPal settle more than 60 million cases a
year. Modria's resolution system includes modules for diagnosis, negotiation,
mediation, and arbitration with a "fairness engine" that delivers fast and fair
outcomes. Its website promises intelligent resolutions that eliminate "endless
meetings, complicated integration, and overblown budgets." The Ohio Board
of Tax Appeals is an early example of a government agency that's adopting
the product, which shows the growing possibilities for such systems.
Brown and Katz point to Modria as a good example of a modern law
infrastructure. But they also say the real test going forward will be how
comfortable people are about trusting more personal disputes to the Internet.
"It's one thing for someone to resolve a dispute about failing to claim and pay
for a product that they won on eBay," Katz says. "It's something entirely
different to think of people working out their divorce settlements online.
However, there's a lot of room in the middle for this type of approach to be
incredibly useful."
Computational law could also have broad implications globally, particularly in
countries without the financial resources to build physical infrastructures
capable of handling their caseloads.
Brown envisions all sorts of future scenarios: "What if resolving simple traffic
violations involved a session that occurred in a kiosk with the holograph of a
judge backed by an automated legal reasoning machine? Imagine how
interesting that could be!"
—by Twig Mowatt
Related Sections
Centers
Judiciary Engineering and Modernization Center
Capabilities
Advanced Technologies
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