Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Law
Kevin D. Ashley
University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Graduate Program in Intelligent Systems  

Sample Paper Topics

I. Legal Philosophy and AI & Law

[Jurisprudential Scholar]s Model of Reasoning with Precedents--Can it Be Made to Compute?
(e.g., Max Radin, Karl Llewellyn, Edward Levi...)

[Jurisprudential Scholar]s Model of Statutory Interpretation--Can it Be Made to Compute?
(e.g., Karl Llewellyn, Cass Sunstein)

Toward Modeling the Uses of Hypotheticals in Legal Reasoning.

How do Lawyers Reason with Principles and Policies -- Ramifications for AI

Jurisprudence and [Quines Theory of Indeterminacy of Translation] or [Lakatos’s Heuristic Methods for Mathematical Discovery] [etc.]

A Comparison of Reasoning with Cases in Law and Ethics

How Can AI Facilitate Comparative Law?

Is Law an Ill-defined Domain and What does that Mean for AI and Law?

How Do Civil Law Attorneys Reason with Cases?

How Do Civil Law Attorneys Deal with Common Law Problems?

II. General AI & Law

Critique of [some AI and Law Approach]

Proposal for improving upon [some AI and Law Approach]

Proposal for an AI system to [Perform some Legal Task]

Does the Legal System Learn and How?

Machine Learning Systems in AI and Law?

What are Ontologies and Why Does AI and Law Need Them?

III. Legal Decisionmaking

What do juries do? Cognitive Models of a Trier of Fact.

Predicting the Outcomes of Legal Disputes or of Legal Cases

Jurimetrics and AI--What has changed?

Game theory and settling lawsuits.

Individual Juror Cognitive Decision Making

Statistical Predictions of Case Outcomes versus Legal Reasoning

Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems in the Field of Law

Thinking About How Lawyers Think: a Critique of the Application of Artificial Intelligence to Law

What is the Role of Explanation in Legal Decisionmaking?

What is the Role of Explanation in Legal Prediction?

IV. AI & Law Applications in Specific Legal Domains

Application of Artificial Intelligence Computer Systems to Patent Law Practice and Operations at the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Rules, Cases and the Federal Securities Laws

Leases, Secured Transactions, and the Dimensional Modeling of Case-Based Argument

Artificial Intelligence, Stereotypes and the Law

Cop Law: The Problem of Judicial Reality for Expert Systems

Tort Adjudication and the Emergence of Artificial Intelligence

Computer Issues for American Tort Law

Analysis of the Uses of Cases and Factors in Criminal Law

How Can AI Help Practitioners Deal with International Conventions? (e.g., UN Convention on Sales)

Why is Legal Planning So Hard for AI and Law?

V. Improving Legal Information Retrieval and Legal Research

Toward a Personal Research Assistant for Attorneys

Toward Using Computerized Case Networks to Improve Legal Research

Toward Applying AI Techniques for Improving Legal Research

Toward Applying AI Techniques in Patent Searches

When Will Computers Ever “Learn” to “Read” Legal Texts?

Toward Applying Information Extraction Techniques to Legal Texts

Toward Building Question-Answering Programs for Legal Domains

Toward a Semantic Web for Law

Applying AI to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Case Database

VI. Legal Education and Cognitive Science, AI, Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The Use of the Case Method in Legal Education

Comparing the Case Methods in Law and Business Classrooms

What Law Students Should Learn and How to Measure It

Designing Multiple Choice Tests for Law School Courses

Teaching Argumentation Skills in Legal Education

VII. Modeling Legal Argument

Dimensional Analysis in Legal Domains

Computer Generation of Argument: A Categorization of Arguments in Supreme Court Briefs

Modeling Legal Argument as a Game

Game Theory and Legal Argument

Modeling Legal Argument with “Critical Questions”

Modeling Role of Principles and Policies in Legal Argument

Dialogue Models for Legal Argument

VIII. AI in E-Commerce, E-Government & Legal Practice

Artificial Intelligence in the Private Law Firm

Just Say Normalize: Flowcharts for Making Legal Texts Intelligible

Is there a Role for AI in E-Government?

Is there a Role for AI and Law in Making Law Accessible to the Governed?

Is there a Role for AI in On-Line Dispute Resolution?

Applying Data Mining in Legal Contexts

Is there a Role for AI in Electronic Contracting?

AI Models of Contract Formation

IX. Legal Issues Concerning AI Programs

Legal Issues of Liability in connection with Expert Systems.

Intellectual Property Issues of AI Programs

Who Owns What When AI Programs Create?

When Should AI Agents Have Ethical/Legal Rights?

Robots and the Law

Legal Issues of AI in Electronic Communications Surveillance

Survey of Patents Issued for AI Programs and Legal Issues Raised