Product/Design : Clickable Statutes

What Problem Does It Solve?: Most people have difficulty reading and understanding complex legal texts and rules.

How Does It Do That?: A computible diagrams shows the rule structures clearly and allows the user to interact with the statute or rules by turning facts on and off and seeing the resulting conclusions light up.

Why Is It Different? : This is the first system that makes it easy to map complex legal logic into hierarchically nested graphical diagrams that can be used to compute the outcome of particular cases.

Who will use it? : Experts will author diagrams that show the structures and logic embodied in authoritative legal texts, case doctrine, regulations, or organizational rules. These published diagrams will be used by:

• Lay persons seeking to understand particular laws and judge how rules apply to their own facts
• Lawyers analyzing application of statutes or regulations to their client’s cases
• Law students studying particular areas of law
• Legislative draftsmen assessing whether and how to amend current laws
• Corporate employees attempting to learn about and comply with regulations or corporate policies

Other Potential Uses : Clickable digrams can be created for any set of propositions that can be expressed using “and” “or” and “not” logic. With shared authoring, these diagrams could become a new form of graphical blog.

More Detailed Description : The Clickable Statutes software is a client side application developed in Runtime Revolution. There is a library of examples that have been built by law proferssors and law students. Key features of of the software include:

• Drag and drop authoring of new diagram structures
• Hierarchical nesting makes clear core structures of complex rules at every level
• Optional constraints to make certain facts mutually inconsistent
• Ghost buttons to allow use of a fact at multiple places in a diagram
• Rollover explanations to expand upon and explain particular items
• Ability to include full text and links to external resources
• Optional display of alternative versions of a statute or rule
• Genetic algorithm evolution to “solve” for those facts needed to produce desired outcomes

Lead Designer : David R. Johnson

Sponsors: Clickable Statutes was initially developed by Graphical Groupware.

For More Information: email: bnoveck@nyls.edu; (202) 674-0187