In today’s digitally connected world, legal information and regulation accessibility are of ever greater importance for both individuals and institutions. While the past has seen significant strides in making the law available online for human interaction, computers and automated systems have not yet fully enjoyed the same level of access. The Computer Accessible Law Project aims to bridge this gap, ensuring that legal information is not just accessible, but easily interpretable by computer systems.

Objectives:
The project is driven by two core objectives, structured along two axes:

1. Identification of Legal Sources
With over 1,000,000 governmental entities publishing regulations online (including governments, states, counties, cities, etc.), identifying all accessible laws is no small task. We are employing advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to create a comprehensive public directory of all online accessible laws, making finding relevant laws more streamlined and efficient.

2. Distribution in a Computer-Accessible Way
We’re developing a repository specifically tailored for computer accessibility. This means laws and regulations can be easily retrieved and interpreted by automated systems. In addition, we’re building APIs to facilitate access to the law in various formats, including as
– Raw and Structured Text: Distributed through datasets, making them useful for NLP research or model training.
– Embeddings: Either distributed directly or through APIs to enhance access to legal information for language models and search applications.
– Law as Code: Enabling deterministic and reliable interpretation of law by computers, translating legal language into executable code.

Impact:
The Computer Accessible Law Project is a pioneering effort towards digital inclusivity in the legal realm. By ensuring that computers cannot only access but also interpret the law, we are breaking down barriers and creating a more transparent and efficient legal environment. This initiative holds the potential to revolutionize legal research, policy analysis, compliance checks, and more.

Whether it’s making legislation more accessible to the everyday citizen through intelligent assistants or empowering organizations with tools to automate compliance, the potential applications are vast and far-reaching. Through collaboration, innovation, and a commitment to open access, the Computer Accessible Law Project is working to redefine how we interact with and understand the very fabric of our legal system.

The descriptions of current and past projects of CodeX non-residential fellows are provided to illustrate the kind of work our non-residential fellows are carrying out. These projects are listed here for informational purposes only and are not endorsed by CodeX, Stanford Law School, or Stanford University.