The applications of artificial intelligence to law: a survey of six current projects
AFIPS '81 Proceedings of the May 4-7, 1981, national computer conference
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ABF is an expert system that assists attorneys in designing legal documents. The system starts by extracting from a library of legal forms a skeleton template that has embedded within it programming constructs such as conditionals and loops, references to other texts, and variables, which are later replaced by client-specific information in the course of a legal interview. Alternative passages are included or excluded dynamically as the interpreter encounters loops and conditionals. As the system analyzes the document, when it discovers that information is missing, it first looks in the client data file, then it tries to compute it, calling a subprogram if necessary. If all else fails, it generates an English question asking the user for the missing data. The user can stop the interpreter at any time, edit the draft, and reinitiate processing at any point. ABF has been implemented in PASCAL and runs on an IBM PC.