NCJ Number
72526
Date Published
1980
Length
10 pages
Annotation
JURIS, an automated legal research (ALR) system used by the U.S. Department of Justice, is described in terms of its development and current use.
Abstract
JURIS is a direct descendant of the 1960 ALR systems. Its initial programming began in-house in 1970 on an IBM 360/40. At that time, the immediate objective was to provide Department of Justice attorneys with a pilot text-retrieval system that could easily be modified to meet changing or expanding research needs. Following an evaluation in late 1975, three decisions were made concerning the future of JURIS. First, programming would be undertaken to refine the search language and display and print capabilities one final time. Second, requirements would be defined and procurement actions would be initiated to acquire a custom-tailored terminal for use exclusively by JURIS. Third, a data bank of case law would be built to provide for the department's research needs. The efforts made over the next year as a result of those decisions produced the final system, which now runs on an IBM 370/168 to support its growing number of users and data banks. Currently, every word, number, or phrase in the JURIS data bank (except for common conjunctions and prepositions) can be used by a researcher to find court cases and statutes that bear on a particular legal question. For the JURIS user, the terminal provides instant access to standard research sources and provides the option of using the user's own or someone else's analyses to find cases. Fourteen footnotes are provided.