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General Aspects: Lawyer's Perspective

Legist means "one skilled in the law." Legist-- the Legal Information Server Technology-- is envisioned as an information system, designed specifically for the legal profession, which would revolutionize the practice of law. Legist would handle the drafting, communicating, researching and storing of all forms of law-related information. Development and adoption of this technology would streamline the creation of legal documents, speed the filing and distribution of court documents, and simplify legal research.

From the automated desktop or portable computer, an attorney could engage Legist to research any aspect of the law, create a motion, distribute the motion among her associates for comment and editing, file the motion with the court, and receive the court's ruling on the motion. The entire process could be performed without the creation of a single paper document. However, if a paper document were desired, Legist's internal controls would ensure that the electronic and paper forms of the document were faithful reproductions of each other, by means of tamper proof signatures or seals and encodings.

The Legist database, an image base, would not be limited to paper documents. Designed around a multi-media model with capabilities spanning the human senses and information storage technology, Legist's database could contain faithful renderings of physical objects. The Legist system would reproduce all real-world artifacts of an object, whether the object incorporated three dimensions (such as physical evidence objects or publications) or more dimensions (such as sound recordings included with images and documents).

Even paper documents would be treated faithfully in all their dimensions. Electronic representations of paper documents will be marked internally to show signatures or other hand-written annotations, fingerprints, seals, physical mutilation, or any other aspect perceptible by the human senses. Legist's graphical display system will show realistically the physical aspects of any object in its database, including rigid (textual) and non-rigid (hand written text, attribute marks, style, size, visual appearance, etc) artifacts.

The Legist database of law-related information will be distributed on a required number of servers housed throughout the legal community. Server machines could be maintained by courts, law firms, publishers of legal research tools, and even individuals. Legist's Integrated Legal Interface ("ILI") will implement tamper-proof "rings of protection" as a means to control its widespread distribution, protecting it from user tampering, yet providing seamless access to information located anywhere in the system.

Legist-connected servers would provide various services: those operated by the courts and other governmental bodies would be "official" in nature, intended to contain official documents and evidence. Servers operated by academic institutions or publishers of legal research materials would be classified as "research" servers. Servers operated by the law firms would be "private," containing internal information and information which the firm chooses to make available outside the firm. Classifications would be controlled by an administrative body, the LegistIC (Legis Inter Connect), chartered to establish the proper operation and use of the servers. LegistIC, would be empowered by statute to sanction official servers to be operated by courts or other governmental bodies.

Each owner of a Legist-connected server will be able to establish parameters dictating the access allowed to objects the owner has added to the global database. Access to any object could be made available to any member of the public or limited to a particular law firm, practice group, court staff, or individual. Objects allowing different levels of access could reside on the same server. A "global" search of the database initiated by a user will turn up only documents to which the user has authorized access. Nonetheless, the user will not have to know of the location or even the existence of an object in order for Legist to find it for him. The transparent integration of ILI will allow an attorney to search seamlessly, for example, case law, legislation, and a firms' database of legal memoranda with only one query.

The Legist system methodology will break down into four kinds of access: "administrative", "official" (Judicial), "non-casual" (Legal Professional and Pro Se) and "casual", each class of which will provide different levels of security and implement different levels of access to the databases contingent upon rules pertaining to the orderly and legal operation of the Legist network and all servers, and the dependent legal processes.

Security will be a primary building block of the Legist system. Not only will Legist allow for an unlimited and simple method for setting access levels for objects, Legist will provide ironclad enforcement of access limitations. To enjoy the benefits of an integrated interface to a distributed database, courts, law firms and attorneys will need to connect their internal data to the Legist system. For example, a firm's attorney could conveniently search both public court opinions and internal client memoranda simultaneously only if a view of the firm's client files were part of the database for his access session. Severe access limitations would be imposed to prevent the unauthorized access of confidential documents. Legist will provide the option to encrypt information in the database or hide data objects or parts of data objects. Legist will positively identify users before allowing access to the system, and all accesses to Legist will be archived as part of the specific server's business records.

Besides passwords, Legist will require voice recognition, face recognition, or other sophisticated identification techniques for certain kinds of access deemed "non-casual".

By conveniently combining all aspects of legal information processing into a single integrated environment, Legist would save hours, money, and resources. Legist's adoption would improve the efficiency of the country's legal system, making access to the legal system less expensive while making the practice of law more profitable.

General Aspects: Programmer's Perspective

Legist-- the Legal Information Server Technology-- is envisioned as a ground breaking distributed database system. Legist will require new approaches to implement innovative aspects of the system.

Legist's database of legal information will contain items of many different types. The system will be flexible so that any type of item may be represented in the database and accessed via standard search functions. For example, the Legist database will contain items such as documents that are printed or handwritten, physical items that require three-dimensional modeling, sound recordings, and video recordings. Legist will be flexible enough to allow for any item to be included in its database and for any item to be fully or parly access restricted.

Legist's flexibility will be implemented by treating all items in a similar multi-dimensional fashion, storing them in an image base. Every database object will have the capability to include the information necessary for Legist to reproduce, display, or describe the item as it exists in the real world and render it in various sensory forms accurately.

Paper-based objects will be treated similarly. Today, a document would be scanned and converted using an OCR program before being entered into a database. As a result, the physical characteristics of the original document are lost. Legist, treating all database objects as multi-dimensional physical items, will record all the physical aspects of a document, including color, bond weight, handwritten marginalia, mutilation, stapling, etc. The document, when displayed by Legist, will appear to the user as it would appear in the physical world.

The contents of the Legist database will be distributed on machines existing over a world-wide geographical area and under independent control. Courts, law firms, legal publishing houses, and individual attorneys will be able to create local Legist databases and link them into the global database. Database contributors will have control over the content of and access to objects within the database. A central administrative body, the LegistIC, will authorize the addition and sanctioning of servers connected to the Legist system, but individual servers will be controlled by a multitude of entities. Despite this decentralization of control, Legist will allow for seamless access to the information within the database. Legist will not require its users to know where a particular data object is housed or even to know that a data object exists.

Legist will be implemented from the ground up as a secure system. It is envisioned that law firms and courts will entrust information to the system that is protected from public access by law and/or attorney/client privilege.

From an access viewpoint, Legist will ensure absolute security for protected or privileged information. All data objects in the system will be encrypted in a way that, even were a device stolen from a system, its content would be useless or unproductive to decode. Positive identification of Legist users and classification of their access restrictions for a particular session and when connected with a particular kind of Legist content, will be required. Beyond password protection, Legist will implement more sophisticated identification technologies such as voice recognition or facial feature recognition. Geolocation-specific controls, and impenetrable restrictions against intrusion and interference will be a requirement for "official" and "administrative" access. Site and server specific policies relating to "partial" and "full" access, along with a hegemony of easy to understand rules of operation will ensure that rules of privacy and security are adhered to. A full gamut of anti hacking firewalls would be implemented in the basic architecture.

From a data object integrity viewpoint, Legist will ensure that objects returned by the system are faithful reproductions of the original object. Legist will provide a mechanism that reproves the validity of every data object before it is provided to the system user. Legist will create a unique key for every part of an object that is derived from the attributes of the object itself. The purpose for uniquely identifying "component parts" is so that even those component parts may be access limited and seperately encrypted (for instance - internal use components for viewing only by administrators or judiciary - would not be accessible to those not authorized to access them). Any time the faithfulness of a reproduction needs to be checked, Legist will be able to derive the key from the test object and compare the result to the original key. In addition, permanent, bona fide, non-modifyable copies of originals will be maintained within archiving as a last resort method of preventing unauthorized modifications.

Legist's search engines will be powerful enough to track the global content of the database and yet quickly return useful search results. Global search engines will index all objects that have been exposed for public access. Local search engines will index private, privileged, or protected objects on local machines. A user's request for a search will trigger a meta-search on all indexes to which the user is allowed access. The result of the meta-search would be the set of all relevant objects accessible by the user.

Methods of search would include: Concept and Knowledge based retrieval, Text based retrieval, Related Information based retrieval, Weighted Relevance based retrieval, Index based retrieval, and a wide variety of other methods and combinations.

Users would interact with Legist using agents to perform tasks on the database. Agent tasks could include searching for relevant data objects or uploading new data objects. For example, a Legist client application could be used by an attorney to formulate a search of the global database. The client application would send this request to the local Legist server as an agent looking for relevant information. The local server would return to the client any relevant objects via new agents. Then the local server could forward copies of the agent to other servers that also might have information relevant to the agent's search. By passing from server to server, the agents would ferret out all the relevant, accessible information from the Legist system.

Faithful Reproduction of the Original: Lawyer's Perspective

Legist will store and display Faithful Reproductions of the Original ("FRO") physical items in its databases. Using FRO database objects, Legist will be able to reproduce the appearance and other attributes of physical items in as realistic a fashion as technology will allow. The FRO object will also enhance the ability of a user to search the database and find relevant items. Besides storing the printed content of a document, for example, Legist will store information comprehensively describing the tangible and intangible characteristics of the object. Legist will use this information to organize the database and display detail-rich, realistic representations of the items in the database.

Legist will use a virtual reality technique ("Compound Synthetic Artifact" or CSA) to store the physical aspects of an item. The CSA virtual reality technology allows a computer to store compactly a physical description of an item as it exists in three-dimensional space. In addition, the CSA computer record can include additional properties of an item such as sound or the ability of the item to move or be moved. A virtual reality display program uses this information to produce an image of the object that can be viewed from any angle. The appearance of an item in different physical environments or under different lighting conditions could be reproduced through image enhancement technology upon rendering the object in question in its original form.

Using virtual reality technology, any object in the Legist database could be displayed as it would be seen in the physical world. Legist could display the signatures on a document or the impress of a seal. Marginalia or mutilation of a document could be inspected without consulting the physical document.

Items other than paper documents could just as easily be stored in and reproduced by Legist. A Legist database could contain an object representing, for example, a knife entered into evidence at a criminal trial. Legist could manipulate objects in a variety of ways. For example, the knife's appearance could be inspected from any angle. Or the results of an ultraviolet light experiment on the knife could be reproduced, graphically showing the existence of fingerprints or blood. New projective technologies could be used to create a "3-D" holograph of the knife and a group of other objects to allow their viewing with respect to each other in a real time sequence, recreating the events of their use. Evidentiary findings could be superimposed on the knife and proposed consequences of various events which led to the knife's presence at an evidence site could be manipulated in "what if" mode.

FRO objects also will store intangible properties of an item. An FRO object that stores a written document will include an electronic version of the content of the document that can be searched for keywords. Similarly, an FRO object storing a sound recording will include a searchable, electronic transcript.

All FRO data objects will store information describing the content and meaning of an item. Because Legist will contain many items that cannot be translated into print, a mechanism is required that will allow Legist to describe the content of all items in ways that facilitate searching the database. Users will be able to supply information that describes the content, relevance, or importance of an item added to the database. In addition, Legist will be equipped to interpret items and extract important organizing concepts from their content. Together, the user supplied and the Legist extracted information will enhance the ability of the Legist database to be searched.

Faithful Reproduction of the Original: Programmer's Perspective

The primary data object of the Legist database will be the Faithful Reproduction of the Original ("FRO") object. A central goal of the Legist system is to create a database that is able to store a description of a physical item, which could be any object in the universe, that allows Legist to display a realistic, three-dimensional, multimedial representation of the item. The FRO object also will include properties that describe the content and relevance of an item. Finally, the FRO object will implement a method that makes the object's accuracy and validity self-proving.

Legist workstations are expected to incorporate high quality display and sound capabilities. Over time, workstation capabilities will improve or be enhanced with more and more 3-D projective capabilities. Legist will be designed to take advantage of current capabilities and to evolve in the future to keep up with advances in technology.

Legist will take an object oriented approach to the design of the FRO object. The fundamental object will contain one or more context properties, a self-validation method, and possibly a category property. The context properties will contain information, regarding the purpose and type of an item and the item's relation to other items in the database, which will help a Legist search engine to find and index an FRO object. The context property may be filled by user input or by an operation of Legist itself or by a combination of user input and Legist operation. The self-validation method, a security measure, will perform an operation on the FRO object, the result of which will show conclusively whether the FRO object is valid and has not been altered unexpectedly. The category property may be used to group objects into categories based on how Legist should interact with the objects. For example, Legist may interact differently with an object that contains a document than with an object that contains a sound recording.

Additional classes of the FRO object may be created by adding properties that provide Legist with additional information useful for the display of the object. As examples, an FRO physical object will contain properties that describe the three-dimensional aspects of the contained item. An FRO sound object will contain properties that describe the sound aspects of the contained item. An FRO electronic document object may only contain properties that describe the content of the contained item-- without any information concerning how Legist should display the object.

To display physical items, Legist will use sophisticated three-dimensional modeling. Legist will use a virtual reality technique ("Compound Synthetic Artifact" or CSA) to store the physical aspects of an item. Using CSA, Legist will be able to store compactly a physical description of an item as it exists in three-dimensional space. Even though it compresses component parts, it does so faithfully, by inclusion of reference frames which enable reconstitution without loss of multimedia image integrity. Legist will be equipped to handle the display of even the smallest of details. For example, in the legal realm, Legist could be called on to display fingerprints on physical evidence or handwriting.

FRO Authenticity: Lawyer's Perspective

Legist will be designed with security as a foremost goal. There are many places that security could be compromised. One such concern is with the accuracy of the information returned to the user from the database. Legist will provide a mechanism by which the validity of information returned to the user can be checked against the original item that was put into the database.

Any database system involves the creation and handling of multiple copies of a database record or CSA. It is not always clear in some databases, which copy is true to the fundamental instance of the information in the record (master record) against which the accuracy of other objects need to be judged. To solve this problem, Legist will require secure objects (those whose accuracy can be determined by the system) to be certified by a competent authority. Once certified, the system will be able to detect any variance from the master record by any copy-- even if the master record itself has been altered. Due to the archival of "exact masters" the computer can immediately compare the versions being used in Legist servers, and "re-authenticate" the same from the archival version that was originally judged bona fide by a competant authority.

When adding any item to the Legist database, the user will be asked to verify that the new object in the database is an accurate copy of the original. Once verified, Legist will create a unique key for the object. This key will be produced by performing a calculation on the object itself. The key will be like an electronic seal or signature, certifying the validity of the object. The key will be encrypted and stored in the Legist system. In the future, whenever a copy of the data object is accessed by Legist and returned to the user, Legist will recalculate the key using the copy of the object. If the stored key and the key created from the data object copy do not match, Legist will be able to warn the user of a possible breach in Legist's security.

The competent authority to perform certification for an item may vary. For a legal brief or pleading, the attorney/author who adds the item to the database may be able to do the certification herself. Other items (for example, legislative acts or court opinions) might be certified by a government printing office or official of the court.

Legist will be designed so that Legist objects meet requirements for authentication and identification under typical court rules. Legist database objects that will be created by scanning, recording, filming or other mechanical or electronic process could be treated for evidentiary purposes as duplicates. Demonstration that Legist objects created with such techniques and bearing the Legist electronic seal are faithful reproductions of the originals should satisfy most courts' requirements for admission of duplicates as evidence. For example, Rule 1001 of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines an admissable duplicate as:

a counterpart produced . . . by mechanical or electronic re-recording, . . . or by equivalent technique which accurately reproduces the original. FED. R. EVID. 1001.

In many courts, "duplicates" can be admitted into evidence exactly as originals, if the duplicate can be shown to be authentic. For example, Rule 1003 of the Federal Rules of Evidence states:

A duplicate is admissible to the same extent as an original unless (1) a genuine question is raised as to the authenticity of the original or (2) in the circumstances it would be unfair to admit the duplicate in lieu of the original. FED. R. EVID. 1003.

The use of Legist objects does not seem to raise an issue of fairness. Legist's electronic seal for data objects ought to satisfy courts as to the authenticity of Legist objects. The seal indicates that Legist has verified that the copy under seal is an exact replica of the original archive of the "exact master." The court will be able to view the results of the comparison, and itself "re-authenticate" the object if necessary. Even this process will result in further archiving - so that the trail of re-certification can later be recreated in the event an error is claimed.

As with other admissible duplicates, Legist data objects could be questioned only in relation to the human factors involved in the original creation of the objects. As with photocopies, a party would have to raise a genuine question whether the object creation was perverted by some human intervention. For example, a party might allege that the original was altered before a duplicate was created in the Legist system. Absent such a priori tampering, Legist objects should be admissible to the same extent as photocopies or other admissible duplicates.

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FRO Authenticity: Programmer's Perspective

Legist will provide an inherent ability to verify the accuracy and validity of data objects. This ability will be of the highest order as it is a design requirement that Legist objects meet the stringent requirements of court rules regarding admissibility of evidence. To expect to meet court requirements, Legist must be able to show that a data object returned by the system is an accurate copy of the original item entered into the Legist database.

Certifying the validity of a data object will be a two-step process, requiring human and system input. First, when a data object is initially added to the Legist database, the user will be asked to verify that the data object is an accurate duplicate of the original item. Second, if the user is satisfied with the data object, a unique key will be created by Legist and stored. Legist objects will provide a method that performs an operation on the data object itself which results in the creation of a unique key.

Whenever Legist returns a copy of an object to a user, Legist will first verify the copy is accurate. Using the copy of the data object, Legist will again create the key for the object. This new key will be compared to the original stored key. If the keys do not match, Legist will notify the user that the object has been corrupted. Else if Legist finds that the keys do match, it will provide the copy to the user, indicating via an electronic "seal" or other means that the object has passed verification.

Only the human element in the verification of the original object will provide an opportunity for error. To cover this possibility, the electronic "seal" will provide the user with the identity of the person or organization that performed the verification. The user will be free to form his own conclusions as to the trustworthiness of the human verification.

For security purposes, the key will be stored in encrypted form on a server that is under the control of the organization or individual that also controls the data object. Because the key is generated from the data object itself, it may be possible to reverse the key creation method and get some indication of the contents of data object. At the very least, the existence of the key points to the existence of the data object. Even this limited knowledge of the data object is unacceptable for objects that are protected by court order or attorney/client privilege. Placing the key under the same control as the data object itself, provides each with the same level of security.

Internally, Legist will also maintain internal keys for component parts of an object and encrypt and compress the object's content - an associated internal index which aligns these "electronic mechanisms" with the external key used for bonaficity will be itself encoded, and stored permanently with the original object and/or its archival copy.

Distributed Architecture: Lawyer's Perspective

Legist will not exist on a single computer database server existing in a single geographic location. Instead Legist will be broadly distributed on computers controlled by many entities. Courts, law firms, legal publishing houses, and individual attorneys may all maintain database servers that are linked to the world-wide Legist system.

Legist will resemble a hybrid of centrally controlled in-house databases and the wide-open Internet World Wide Web. Similar to in-house databases, Legist's implementation of security measures and organization will be tightly controlled. Nonetheless, similar to the Web, Legist will allow any law-related entity to gain access and to provide information via the system.

For example, a law firm could create an in-house Legist database on server computers it owns and controls. The firm could put its entire body of client files and legal memoranda in the database. Existing alone, this Legist database would enhance the firm's ability to find relevant information from within its own files.

Additional benefits would be derived from linking the firm's Legist database to the global Legist system. This would open access for the firm's attorneys to information provide by Legist servers operated by courts, legal publishing houses, or other attorneys and firms. The firm also could provide access to some of its in-house database to others over the global Legist system. Thus co-counsel from other firms or court officials could access needed items on the firm's server. Communication between the firm and the courts or other firms could be implemented by sending FRO objects to other servers via the Legist system. Since FRO's in transit are always encrypted, Legist would provide a secure way to send confidential information to other attorneys or offices. Pleadings could be filed via Legist by sending them directly to courts' servers. Court rulings could be published by placing public FRO objects on the court's server.

Providing access to the outside world via Legist will not be the same as providing access to the entire contents of the firm's on line client files and other confidential information. Legist's centrally enforced security measures will ensure that unauthorized access is not possible. All users of the Legist system will be required to positively identify themselves before using the system. This requirement will be enforced using technology that recognizes voice prints or facial features, in addition to the usual requirement for password identification.

Every data object in a Legist database will include a security authorization property. By default, this property will severely limit access to the object. Access to the object by outsiders must be consciously enabled by a user authorized to provide outsider access. Objects also will be encrypted by default. Only positively identified, authorized users will be able to decrypt and view an object. Encryption will prevent objects intercepted in transit between Legist servers and clients from being read by unauthorized users. Legist also will ensure that the public cannot gain knowledge of the existence of a private or privilaged object via the system's search or FRO authentication methods.

Legist will allow detailed specifications of access to data objects. A data object's access could be limited to, for example, only members of a firm or office, only members of more than one designated firm or office, only certain practice groups within a firm, only a particular judge's chambers, or only one individual or an enumerated list of individuals. Legist's flexibility in authorizing or denying access to database objects will make the system an easy, fast, and secure method to distribute information within a firm, office or court and throughout the world.

Distributed Architecture: Programmer's Perspective

Legist is intended to be distributed over a global array of database servers under the control of a multitude of users. Nonetheless, Legist's ability to provide for secure storage of information cannot be compromised.

At the heart of the Legal Information Server Technology will be a set of standards, called "classifications" and "modes," that specify how system servers and clients interact. Servers and access-clients can be designed to run on any hardware in any manner the programmer wants as long as the software components follow the Legist standard for communication.

The Legist system will be linked together by using electronic messengers and server agents that handle communications between and among servers. Agents, operating at security levels imposed upon them by the classification (e.g.- "official","administrative", ... etc) of the entity-server they originate from, will move from machine to machine carrying requests for information or database objects. Keen attention will be paid to eliminate the possibility of tampering, hacking, intrusion, security violation, and unauthorized access. Every agent object will incorporate properties that identify the human user that initiated the agent, and protocols for enabling the target server to further authenticate access by contacting the originating entity-server. Servers can use this identification information to decide whether to grant an agent's request or accept information provided by the agent. Recreation audits will be created automatically to ensure that any effort to despoil a server will be recoverable and preventable. Legist will ensure that this information cannot be faked or altered. Aliases will not be allowed.

When a server creates an agent for a client machine, the agency programming will create a unique key based on the properties of the agent itself, along with property, class and access authorization "indications" provided by the profile stored about the client. This key will be used to verify the authenticity of an agent through backwards verification with the original entity-server or to whatever server of official capacity granted authorization for this level of access. This key creation method is the same as that used for authenticating FRO objects, and could include actual recertification of the original approvals from the archive in the granting "official" server.

The key will be saved by the client's "assigned access authorizing server" (AAAS) machine - the server which grants permission to a client machine to access Legist. AAAS servers for private, public, official, administrative, live court, law firm and practitioner will have to be functioning and on-line for a client machine to access other than as a "guest" with limited access. No agent key will be created without real-time reverification of the user of that machine's living identity at the time of key creation.

Once the agent has arrived at a targeted server, the server will recompute the calculable portion of the key and compare it with the copy stored at the AAAS. The server will then query the client to send a copy of the client's key. The agent's request will be carried out by the server, if the client application can send a copy of the key that matches the key created by the server. A protocol document defining the public version of this keying and encryption (AAASkey Protocol) will be included in a future update of this paper.

User identification will be ensured by requiring that client applications positively identify their users before allowing the users to access the system. Besides passwords, clients will be required to use voice, facial or other recognition systems intended to authenticate that the users are the living breathing persons claimed.

Every data object will include a security authorization property that will indicate exactly who or what categories of persons can have access to the object. A server will not provide access to objects in its database unless the agent's identification information shows the requesting user is authorized to access the object. Similarly, a server accessed to look for object references in an index will not return a reference unless the agent's user is authorized to access the underlying object. In this way, users will not be able to use Legist's search methods to discover the existence of privileged or protected objects on other database servers.

All information in a Legist database may be encrypted at the user's option. All information sent among servers or between servers and clients will be encrypted.

Search Capabilities: Lawyers' Perspective

Legist will provide the attorney with the ability to search a wide universe of knowledge seamlessly using tools that the attorney already knows and understands. Although the information in the Legist system will be distributed across computers in many different locations, Legist's search capabilities will be able to search across all databases simultaneously. Attorneys will be able to search using electronic versions of tools similar to legal digests and indexes and to find law by citation.

Legist databases will use natural language processing, information extraction, multimedia analysis, knowledge processing (For information about knowledge process technology, review the work of Dr. Paul Pruett, elsewhere on-line in the ACSA Research Publications and Scientific Reviews pages.) and other techniques to create local indexes and retrieval traversals of the objects that the databases contain. Central servers may produce indexes of documents available to the public throughout the system. These indexes will allow searches of the system that are more sophisticated than the typical word matching searches used today. By interpreting the meaning of a document or other item, Legist will be able to find relevant items even if none of the words found in the search query also exist in the item. Legist's ability to search the meaning of an item will be particularly crucial to making it possible for a user to find non-textual, multi-media objects (database objects containing representations of photographs, video and sound recordings, or physical items) in the system.

Users will be able to search Legist databases using natural language queries. In addition, Legist will use its analysis of the objects in the databases to produce digests and indexes that can resemble the physical indexes and digests familiar to attorneys in hard-copy format. For example, software publishers or traditional legal publishing houses could make use of this analysis to produce an electronic version of bound research tools similar to the Decennial Digest or Shepard's. Legist will provide a subscription technology that will automatically update such plug-in enhancements for the Legist interface. Legist's electronic versions of legal research tools would have the advantage over their physical counterparts of indexing a body of law which is kept continuously up to date.

When a user initiates a search of the Legist databases, the search will be performed across all desired and accessible databases or proxies in accordance with a reference simultaneously. By using a combination of the indexes maintained on local servers and the larger public indexes maintained centrally, Legist will be able to find quickly all relevant information available world-wide. Tools for picking through the results of a search will enable the results to be consolidated and duplicate information eliminated by the client application. As a result, a user will not need to know where information is located to retrieve it from the Legist system, but will be able to determine where it came from quite easily and will be able to localize a search in the event that the source may contain related information retrievable by a different method.

Search Capabilities: Programmers' Perspective

Legist will provide its users with the ability to search simultaneously many or all databases in the global Legist system. Proxy services will be provided to eliminate cross contention. A proxy service duplicates the original copy of information on a "mirror site" and is optimized around providing the above referenced server mechanism - thereby freeing the original site to engage in its normal Legist processing without stress from the overhead of constant requests for searches. This "Middle Proxy Service" will be a natural outgrowth of building the global Legist Network to carry Legist system services to lawyers, courts and elsewhere.

Legist databases will use natural language processing, information extraction, multimedia analysis, knowledge processing, and other techniques to provide users with the ability to search the meaning as well as the literal content of database objects. Legist's ability to store three-dimensional or multi-media content will be mirrored by the ability for Legist to analyze and understand the meaning of these objects.

When a client application initiates a search, the client application will create an agent that contains a request to servers for all objects which match the search criteria. When an agency request is received by a server (or one of its proxies), that server first will contact the client to validate the agent and acknowledge its receipt. Second, the server will send back to the client any relevant objects that it finds in its database. Third, the server may dispatch a copy or copies of the agent to other servers that might also contain relevant objects. Before sending a copy of the agent, the server will first verify that this particular agent has not already been sent to the secondary server. The secondary servers could pass the agent on to further servers. In this way, the search could be quickly propagated across the system, but no server would be queried twice.

Legist will use information extraction techniques and analysis of multi-media or physical items to create searchable indexes of databases. The databases will be either local or central. All database servers will maintain local indexes of the data objects that are stored locally. These local indexes will be the only source that can be searched to find documents whose access is limited. By indexing protected or privileged information only on the local level, control over access to a database object can be maintained at the local level. Both the object and the index which points to its existence will have the same level of security. Legist will not provide the opportunity for a user to discover the existence of a protected document by finding a reference to it in a central index.

Central indexes may be maintained that contain references to the public documents found on more than one server. Some central servers may attempt to embrace all the public information available in the global Legist system. These central servers can be used to speed searches of the global database system. Like other servers, these central servers will identify themselves to the client as having been contacted so that the server will not be contacted twice. In addition, the central server will provide to the client the identities of all the databases that the central server indexes, preventing these databases from being queried directly. The use of central indexes covering multiple databases will speed the search process. If the central servers find relevant references in their indexes, the central servers will contact the servers actually containing the database objects, requesting that the objects be sent directly to the client.

The Legist database is designed to contain items of many different types. In order to index these objects and provide users with the ability to search for these objects, Legist will need the ability to analyze objects and decide their meanings. Legist will use Object-Character Recognition to read the content of matter added to the system. Recognition techniques must be perfected that allow Legist to understand the content of objects that are completely non-textual. In addition, Legist will provide users with the ability to provide the system with useful contextual information about objects added to the databases.

Beyond the ability to search using natural language queries, Legist will use its object analysis techniques to create search applications which resemble in function familiar legal research tools. For example, attorneys often find case law using digests of court decisions. These digests are indexed summaries of the key holdings of each case. Information extraction could be used to find and summarize case holdings. Legist could then provide its users with an index that resembles the familiar physical volumes. Legist will include a subscription technology which will proxy update servers at various levels of the rings of protection - so that the Courts may release their updates on a timely basis and that commercial software providers or legal publishing houses may also offer and provide updates to plug-in enhancement components for attorneys to use.

In addition, Legist will accommodate the use of standard legal citation-- a system of assigning unique identifiers to legal documents. See a description of legal citation at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.

Interface: Lawyers' Perspectives

The Integrated Legal Interface ("ILI") will run on low cost high-end-performance workstations. Displays will provide for high-quality, fast, two and three-dimensional rendering of images. Visual Imagery will initially utilize standards such as JPEG, MPEG and HIRES BMP - but Legist will ultimately implement CSA-SOBJECTS (STANDARD OBJECTS), CSA-TRUVPAX (faithful Video, Picture and Audio eXamination format: 2-D and 3-D fixed and moving images with sound for implementation of FRO Objects with features beyond ordinary published or pleading objects), CSA-IMAX (for larger scale image/sound renderings similar to today's IMAX format for recreation of or capture of evidence presentations beyond the limitations of CSA-TRUVPAX)and CSA-TRUAUDIO (where absolutely accurate FRO audio objects must be stored and recreated) formats - formats being defined for use by the ACSA Virtual Courtrooms laborary.

These multi-media capabilities will be standard. They will eventually converge into a self-re-scaling object form which will inherit all of the above CSA object types in one - CSA-FRO.

To enable access to protected objects, workstations will incorporate devices that positively identify users, using such techniques as voice or facial recognition. Nonetheless, the Legist standard will accommodate machines running a variety of operating systems, and Legist will not require dedicated terminals.

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Interface: Programmers' Perspectives

Legist will provide standards for the way in which client applications interact with servers and a basic structure --the Integrated Legal Interface ("ILI")-- that will provide minimal implementations of the client interface and certain security measures. Legist and ILI will be able to work with client machines running any operating system.

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Legist: A New Generation in Legal Productivity

When implemented, Legist will revolutionize the manner in which attorneys do research, create documents, communicate, and store information. The Faithful Reproduction of the Original object creates a way for attorneys to store and access information in a format that is true to the information's physical appearance and attributes. The FRO object can be used to file pleadings with a court, exhibit evidence in a court room, and archive data. The enhancement of the court's understanding of the difference between an original object - its exact master copy - its FRO - and the Artifactual characteristics (and or, the loss or gain of same) will greatly strengthen the court and the legal profession's treatment of documents, evidence and procedures, through the effective use of and leverage provided by advanced information systems technology.

Taken together, the Legist could assure that every attorney and every judge would be "equally equipped with ready information and capably skilled in every aspect of the law in every jurisdiction and legal application from which to profess..."

  Update 1 (authored exclusively by J. Shulman)

Tools:  Things which result in Greater Court Productivity in need of problem solving solutions.

The Electronic Courtroom and the Electronic Law Office, two ground -> up revolutions waiting to happen, can be properly implemented using the proper tools.

a.  Recording.  Today's Judicial and Legal practitioners have frequently needed a way to properly record notes and annotations that make it possible to properly recreate the events in Court and legal discussions.  Today, the advent of writing tablets which record handwritten notes, such as the DigiMemo and the Tablet PC, have resulted in a rich library of handwriting, and with tools such as MyScript Notes, DigiMemo Manager, and Rite Pen, as well as Microsoft Windows Tablet PC Edition, enable those notes to be databased in two modes: "Handwriting Image Mode" and "Typed Text / Drawing Mode".  A third mode, recording the pleadings and exhibits, are able to be stored in "non-revisable final format documents".  As a result, three rich recordings of Legal Proceedings, are readily available, as well as the computerized records of the Court and Legal Case Management systems.

b. Databasing.  The records of notes and pleadings as well as readily available computerized records are readily kept in database form, which bases may be SQL or Knowledge Based, lending themselves to search engines and application based processing for neurocomputation and ordinary application "gandering" or "browsing".

c.  Authorization.  Such Databases are subject to audit authorization control (AAC). Affixed to each document type and class, are a myriad of necessary uses for which "minimum rights" formats can be comprised so individual, authorized users have the minimum rights necessary and the minimum access available.  This format of Authorization is "identity" and "organization" specific, meaning: each person would have a "minimum rights" profile and to the degree they can prove their recognition by a particular organization, that would be modified to include, or exclude, rights based on their "organization of access".

d. Research.  Within the minimum requirements of Authorization, Research can be conducted by different "organizations" and "entitlements" which can be defined for the purposes of the research.  For example, documents that can be accessed by the public, can be classified "public entitlement" in the Database, and members of the user population who have the "public" attribute, could then search the Databases, through an individual Court or a group or aggregation (National or State Unit) of Courts.  Or, administrative research personnel could be given the "private" attribute, and could search administrative as well as public records.  The so-called "schema" of such an "entitlements" structure, would thereby grant only the appropriate records to authorized individuals engaging in the general subheading of Research.

e.  Appellants and Proceedings.  Within the special requirements of the Court Process, a special Set-aside Database would be required to hold proceedings in motion, on appeal or in special proceeding status, largely because special de-Entitlements may apply.  For example, public access could be prohibited by the Court Process or a Ruling.  Or, specific kinds of access, including the limited right to update, might be granted to the parties to a matter.  A staging area for exhibits prior to approval or special retrievals, along with various others kinds of pre-insertion areas, would require their own Datastructures, as well.  Authorization technology would gate the propriety of access of different kinds.  For example, a Pro-se Appellant in a criminal case who may reside in a Prison System would have one stature, and an attorney in a major firm would have a different stature, yet both might have materially similar rights with respect to the process in motion stored in a Set-aside Database, which would be Set-aside solely for security reasons as its existence, classification and the authorities, schemas and profiles associated with it would materially stem from the Court Clerk process for entry of new proceedings and our the Chamber Clerk for the presiding judicial party, whose decisions govern the rights of access and interaction with the ensuing case being processed.

f.  Virtualization of Conferences, Pre-Trial Intervention and Conferees.  In situations involving the District Attorney and a Legal Practitioner or Firm, or two or more law firms, it is possible to Virtualize Conferences and Conferees, so as to optimize the time of the Court, the time of the Attorneys involved and the effort needed to facilitate attendance by the parties and/or respondents. Virtualization would largely be accomplished using interactive conferencing software, wherein a Conference Referee would be designated by the Court, likely also an officer of the Court who would supervise the conference itself, and in the case of discussion conferences, each law entity involved could supply their own Conference Mediator. If involved in an arbitration discussion, instead, an Arbitration Conference Referee would assume the same role as any Conference Referee.  Virtualization would require participation authorization and waivers effected by the parties which were conformed to represent them, in certain cases sworn oaths and fingerprint scan identification (e.g.- thumbcard) and/or handwriting recognition (e.g. Versafax) of signature might be necessitated, so as to insure no tampering with the conference procedures and the integrity of the legal system.

g.  Technical Appeal.  In the event that technology becomes a source of problem, a "Technical Appeals Process" would have to be instituted, but would not override waivers and or oaths sworn by the parties to participate in, in general and specific, the Virtual Court methodology.  Very specific, a TAP would require sufficient proof that there had been a Technical Problem that prevented Due Process that was itself caused by the technology malfunctioning or imposing unanticipated limitations on the disclosure of evidence, proof and/or hearings, thereby making it possible for an appellant to overturn a decision or vary the proceedings upon Rule of the presiding Judge or senior appeal body, based upon the technical appeal's merits.  While sweeping use of the TAP should be discouraged, it may be that such appeals become commonplace as a result of counsel seeking to delay proceedings, or pepper his or her opponent.  In that case a Technical Appeal Challenge would be the likely recommended solution such that any Technical Appeal could be first examined by the Court for veracity and merits and dismissed altogether as frivolous, or further examined to determine if the Technical Appeal causality or related problems may have deprived more than the raising party appellant any rights.

h.  Rights vs. Remedies. The notions in any data processing oriented or virtual system is that such things as due process rights and remedies re loss and punitives, are themselves records of human decision making.  So as to protect both Rights (in general) and Remedies (in specific) it becomes vital for their to be defined a variety of degrees within the electronic procedures, for example:  1) An individual right is not reflected in the system, so therefore, software that is designed so as to protect a right in reality or to protect a right within the proceeding, are entirely different from each other, usually.  2) Accordingly, it is vital that definitions be created for "in technology rights" (meaning- that which manifests within the function of the Legist system would in effect impact upon a right, thereby technology having an impact upon rights protection, as well as the ability to protect rights) which scale what impact on rights the systems operations and archives will have and 3) it is equally vital that elements of the system which determine the proceedings, process and outcome be barred from imposing their own systematic rules upon the parties, participants, victims, witnesses, and even the attorneys and judiciary involved, and that the technological solutions adhere to the manner of design of the Court System as determined by the Constitution and the Legislature within the notions of checks and balances, without superseding them and without the assumption being made that it was the technology that limited the ability to do so. 4)  Protection of Rights is a primary rule of automation. Automation must protects the rights of all human participants and of all enterprises.  5) Protection of Remedies, such as assets and historical accuracies and proper procedures that surround remedy, is a vital byproduct of any legal automation system and must not be overlooked, particularly in respect to proceedings like Bankruptcy, or Divorce, or Intellectual Property.

The above represent the fundamentals of expanding the electronic resources of the Court System in brief.  Further information may be obtained by contacting the author at: info@compamerica.com.