Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning
Sample Paper Topics – Version 1.0

Kevin D. Ashley
University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Graduate Program in Intelligent Systems  

 

AI & Law in the Era of Cognitive Computing

Proposal for applying IBM Watson Developer Cloud to [a particular kind of legal practice]

How IBM’s Watson or Debater Can Assist Lawyers

Can IBM’s Watson Pass a Bar Exam?

Proposal for applying Cognitive Computing to Model [Corporate contracts, License Agreements…]

 

Improving Legal Information Retrieval and Legal Research

Toward a Personal Research Assistant for Attorneys

Toward Using Case Networks to Improve Legal Research

Toward Applying AI Techniques for Improving Legal Research

Toward Applying AI Techniques in Patent Searches

Can Computers “Learn” to “Read” Legal Texts?

Toward Applying Information Extraction Techniques to Legal Texts

Toward Building Question-Answering Programs for Legal Domains

Organizing Manual Annotation of Legal Texts

Pedagogical Uses of Manual Annotation of Legal Texts

 

AI & Law Applications in Specific Legal Domains

Application of Artificial Intelligence to Patent Law Searches

Applying AI to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Case Database

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

The problem of cross-language translation of legal texts

How Can AI Model Legal Planning?

Toward Modeling the Role of Factors in [Law Generally, Copyright Law, Trademark Law, Criminal Law, …

Can an AI & Law System Help Police Apply the Law?

 

General AI & Law

Critique of [some AI and Law approach in the syllabus]

Proposal for improving upon [some AI and law approach in the syllabus]

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?

 

Legal Decisionmaking

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

Methods for Predicting Outcomes of Legal Disputes or of Legal Cases

Methods for Assisting Lawyers’ Settlement Decisions

Applying Game Theory to Legal Disputes

Modeling the Role of Narrative in Individual Juror Cognitive Decision Making

How Lawyers Think

The Role of Explanation in Legal [Decisionmaking, Prediction]

 

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

Teaching Argumentation Skills in Legal Education

 

Modeling Legal Argument

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

Dealing with Uncertainty in Legal Argument

 

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? Making Law Accessible to the Governed? On-Line Dispute Resolution? Electronic Contracting? Legal Clinics?]

Applying Data Mining in Legal Contexts

AI Models of Contract Formation

Can there be a Legal Semantic Web?

Automating Corporate Compliance

 

Legal Issues Concerning AI Programs

Legal Liability of AI & Law Systems

Legal and Ethical Issues Concerning Autonomous Systems

Intellectual Property Issues of AI & Law Programs

Who Owns What When AI Programs Create?

When Should AI Agents Have Ethical/Legal Rights?

Robots and the Law

Robot Ethics

Artificially Intelligent Agents and the Law

Legal Issues for AI in Electronic Communications Surveillance

Survey of Patents Issued for AI Programs and Legal Issues Raised

Can AI & Law Systems Legally Practice Law?

 

Legal Philosophy and AI & Law

[Jurisprudential Scholar]’s Model of Reasoning with Precedents--Can it Be Computational?
(e.g., Max Radin, Karl Llewellyn, Edward Levi, Cass Sunstein, Neil MacCormick & Robert Summers...)

[Jurisprudential Scholar]’s Model of Statutory Interpretation--Can it Be Computational?
(e.g., Karl Llewellyn, Cass Sunstein, Neil MacCormick & Robert Summers, Justice Scalia)

Toward Modeling the Uses of Hypotheticals in Legal Reasoning.

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

Jurisprudence and [Quine’s 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 AI Can Facilitate Comparative Law?

How Do Civil Law Attorneys Reason with Cases?

How Do Civil Law Attorneys Deal with Common Law Problems?