Sentence classification for contract law cases

Abstract

Legal practice can gain much from advances in machine learning and A.I. technology. Common law countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, rely on judicial precedent to decide what law governs new cases and how that law is applied. Judicial precedent is the body of case law that observes how past courts have decided similar cases. Case law is composed of individual case decisions by courts that resolve a particular dispute. When resolving new cases, courts look back on judicial precedent to structure how to decide said new cases. Thus, an extensive knowledge base of how prior cases have been decided under what law is needed in each field of legal practice. Legal research is the practice of identifying relevant case law for a particular set of facts and is essential for any practitioner seeking to make the most persuasive argument for clients. Reviewing case law and identifying relevant cases can be time consuming and imperfect; there is always risk that practitioners overlook relevant and/or new case law that has changed the legal landscape of their practice. Thus practitioners are not only required to retain an extensive knowledge base of relevant case law, but also to keep abreast of changes in case law.