[HN Gopher] Legal Drafting and Computer Programming ___________________________________________________________________ Legal Drafting and Computer Programming Author : admp Score : 18 points Date : 2021-12-24 19:00 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (davidallengreen.com) (TXT) w3m dump (davidallengreen.com) | hirundo wrote: | I wonder if some kind of compiler/linter is possible for legal | text. Like, "Warning: this comma is subject to ambiguous | interpretation." But natural languages are poor candidates to use | for composing unambiguous text, and any artificial language that | you have to learn would be a problem, since it's critical that | law is comprehensible to those it governs. On the other hand, it | may be possible to construct a legal DSL that is more clear to | the layman than the predominant legal jargon, and can be parsed | into an S-expression. | | And if we can dream about unambiguous law, we can dream bigger, | about a compiler or linter that could extract more conceptual | flaws, like "Warning: this law would facially violate the First | Amendment", or "this law creates an incentive structure that may | cancel its intentions." | | This is probably too sci-fi to happen in my lifetime, but if I'm | lucky maybe I'll live to see computer generated Friend of the | Court briefs. We may be on the road to that with computer | assisted analysis of historical language corpora to help | determine original meanings. | Kalium wrote: | Legal jargon exists for the same reason programming languages | exist: it is functionally impossible to be sufficiently precise | in idiomatic vernacular. Too many things require precise and | clear shared definitions. What is real property? What is a | security? What is intent? What is a class? What is an object? | What is memory? How do you even begin to function when you | can't define these precisely? | | With this in mind, a person could make a reasonable case that | legal language is already a DSL implemented in a natural | language. | vcdimension wrote: | "Catala: A Programming Language for the Law" : | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.03198.pdf | 11thEarlOfMar wrote: | "For the lawyer, each word in a formal legal document has (or | should have) a purpose: it has been chosen instead of other | words, and also instead of no words at all." | | I know people who can engage in free-form conversation in this | manner. Not to say like a lawyer, but where there are no words | missing, no words incorrect, and no words superflous. I've | marvelled at that ability and find that style of speaking | mesmerizing. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-24 23:00 UTC)