NCJ Number
142548
Journal
Jurimetrics Volume: 33 Issue: 2 Dated: (Winter 1993) Pages: 265-313
Date Published
1993
Length
49 pages
Annotation
This article considers whether or not format and content standards or conventions for legal information are desirable, and if so, how they should be developed.
Abstract
Part I explains why standards are important to lawyers, and Part II discusses how format and content conventions facilitate information exchange. Part III defines an analytical framework for assessing the different kinds of value that can be added to information, value that can be exchanged only through conventions. Part IV considers the special compatibility needs of the legal profession, and Part V reviews existing standards pertinent to legal information; Part VI considers standards-development activities, and Part VII presents recommendations for the future. The article has three major themes. First, it explains how content compatibility, necessarily involving conceptual or semantic objects, presents much greater challenges than format compatibility, which can be ensured relatively cheaply by simply preserving a human-readable image of the information. Second, it concludes that the pace of technological change makes compatibility easier to achieve by post-hoc conventions than by a priori agreement on comprehensive standards. Third, it suggests that a collaborative effort to define requirements in terms of information elements can improve compatibility, because it makes it easier for suppliers to design standardized information representation into their products, as well as being a necessary prerequisite to the formulation of standards in a strong or formal sense. The article concludes that standardizing legal information objects may be appropriate for litigation documents, but it is neither necessary nor feasible with respect to the full range of textual documents used by the profession. 4 figures and 114 footnotes