Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Jurimetrics Journal

Publication Date

Winter 2007

Abstract

This paper presents a visual framework for modelling complex legal reasoning — reasoning that integrates legal rules and policies with expert and non-expert evidence. The framework is based on a many-valued, predicate, default logic. The paper first visualizes the two sides of the rule-evidence interface: rule-based deductions and evidence evaluation. It then explores ways to visualize several dynamics around that interface, including dynamics concerning evidentiary relevance, findings of fact, process decision making about motions, policy-based reasoning about rules and relevant-factor reasoning. The paper then concludes with visualizing dynamics across multiple cases and briefly discusses one pathway by which new legal rules might emerge from the factfinding process. The paper therefore presents a visual working environment for people who litigate or decide actual cases, who study judicial or administrative reasoning or who teach law. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Comments

©2007 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.