JURIX 2018

Calls

• Call for Papers
• Call for Workshops and Tutorials
• Call for Doctoral Consortium Papers
• Call for Hackathon

Important dates

Call for Papers

Topics

For more than 30 years, the JURIX conference has provided an international forum for research on the intersection of Law, Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems, under the auspices of The JURIX Foundation for Legal Knowledge Systems.

We invite submission of original papers on the advanced management of legal information and knowledge systems, covering foundations, methods, tools, systems and applications. We welcome submissions on a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, the following:

I - Theory and foundations

Contributions to the theory and interdisciplinary foundations for the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the legal and forensic domain. Papers should demonstrate (formal) validity, novelty and significance of the work.

• Representation languages and formalisms for legal knowledge;
• Models of legal and ethics knowledge, including concepts (legal ontologies), rules, cases, principles, values,procedures and society models;
• Models of legal interactions of autonomous agents and digital institutions, including normative systems, and norm-governed societies;
• Methods and algorithms for performing legal inference, including argumentation;
• Methods and foundations for legal design discipline;
• Methods and algorithms for designing legal data analytics and predictive models.

II – Technology

Contributions to the technological advancement of Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems in the legal and forensic domain. Papers should demonstrate quality, novelty and significance of the work, and evaluate results.

• Technology for expressing the structure and connections of legal texts and rules, including legislative, judicial, parliamentary, administrative acts as well as private documents, such as contracts;
• Technology for expressing the semantics of legal information and knowledge, including Legal Open Data, Legal Big Data, Knowledge Graph Database;
• Technology for the large scale analysis of legal knowledge and information;
• Technology for the verification and validation of legal knowledge systems, including checking compliance systems;
• Technology for digital-rights management, licensing, access policies and authorisation, including issues in social networks;
• Technology for managing privacy, cybersecurity and digital identity issues, including blockchain methods;
• Technology for managing eCommerce, fraud detection and new market platforms issues;
• Technology for natural language processing and annotation of legal texts;
• Technology for social simulations in the legal domain and for democratic innovation;
• Technology for information retrieval over large bodies of legal texts and legal data;
• Support and methodologies for the acquisition, management or use of legal knowledge in information systems.

III - Applications

Implementations of AI & Law technology in real world systems. Papers should demonstrate added value, novelty and significance of the work, and if possible, validate the described system and evaluate (potential) impact.

• Support for the production and management of legislation, in agenda setting, policy analysis, drafting, publishing and implementation;
• Support for the judiciary, in application of the law, analysis of evidence, management of cases;
• Support for lawyers, in legal reasoning, document drafting, negotiation;
• Support for police and law enforcement activities, in forensic inquiries, search and evaluation of evidence, management of investigations;
• Support for public administration, in applying regulations and managing information;
• Support for business, economic transactions, and other private parties in managing regulatory compliance and compliance of business processes;
• Support for private parties in using alternative forms of dispute resolution, particularly online;
• Support for governance and citizens in enhancing participation, for a better communication (e.g fake news) and democracy (e.g. political data in social media);
• Support for education by using legal information systems in a teaching environment.

Long, Short, and Demo Paper submission

The deadline for paper submission is Sunday, September 16, 2018.

The conference proceedings will be published by IOS Press in their series Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (FAIA). Papers are to be submitted through the Easychair Conference Management System in PDF format:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=jurix2018

All submissions should be formatted using the styles and guidelines in the IOS Press Instructions for Authors.

There are three categories of papers. Please indicate the category of your paper when you submit the paper to Easychair.

Long papers

These are reports of well-developed and original research. An accepted long paper scores well in terms of relevance, originality, technical quality, significance, literature review, presentation, reviewer’s confidence, and overall evaluation. These should not exceed 10 pages. A paper which is not accepted as a long paper may be recommended by reviewers as a short paper.

Short papers

Authors can submit short descriptions of preliminary results or an innovative idea. These papers should not exceed 4 pages.

Demo papers

Authors can submit short descriptions of a system. These papers should not exceed 4 pages. Authors of demo papers should be willing to share (a screencast of) the demo privately with the reviewers, if so requested.

Double Submission

We welcome and encourage the submission of high quality, original papers, which are not simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere except to JURISIN 2018. Papers being submitted both to JURIX 2018 and JURISIN 2018 must note this on the title page, and a paper to be presented at JURIX 2018 must be withdrawn from JURISIN 2018 and vice versa according to the choice by the authors. Failure to follow this policy will result in the paper not being included in the proceedings of JURIX 2018.

Call for Workshops and Tutorials

For more than 30 years, the JURIX conference has provided an international forum for research on the intersection of Law, Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems, under the auspices of The JURIX Foundation for Legal Knowledge Systems. The 2018 JURIX conference will take place in Het Kasteel, Melkweg 1, 9718 EP Groningen, the Netherlands on 12, 13 and 14 December 2018. Besides the standard conference track and the Doctoral Consortium, JURIX 2018 will host a number of workshops and tutorials related to the theme of the conference. Workshops provide an informal setting where participants have the opportunity to discuss specific topics in an atmosphere that fosters the active exchange of ideas. Tutorials enable attendees to familiarize themselves with advances in AI and Law related subjects, both theoretical and technological.

JURIX 2018 welcomes workshops and tutorials that address topics that satisfy the following criteria:

• the topic falls in the general scope of JURIX 2018,
• there is a clear focus on a specific technology, problem or application, and
• there is a sufficiently large community interested in the topic.

Note that in the case of multiple workshop/tutorial submissions on the same topic, you may be asked to merge your proposal with that of others.

Workshop Proposal Guidelines

We invite submissions of workshop proposals on subjects related to the main conference (see the call for papers).

Proposals should be sent to the Program Chair via email (Monica Palmirani (monica.palmirani@unibo.it)). The deadline for workshop proposals is 16 September 2018.

A workshop proposal should be a short PDF document (max 5 pages) outlining the following ingredients:

• Title
• Organizers (more than 2, from different institutions)
• Abstract
• Motivation for the workshop (relation to conference, timeliness)
• Workshop format (paper presentations, panel discussions, invited talks, general discussions or outbreak). We welcome and prioritize workshops with an innovative, creative format that will attract various types of contributions and ensures lively interaction.
• Indication as to whether it is a half-day or full-day workshop
• Intended audience and expected number of participants
• List of (potential) members of the program committee (25% confirmed)
• Submission, notification and camera-ready deadline dates aligned with the ones listed in the ‘Important Dates’ of the main conference
• If applicable, past versions of the workshop, including URLs and statistics on submissions/papers/attendance

If accepted, the workshop organizers are responsible for:

• A workshop webpage, with links to the JURIX 2018 website
• Publicize the workshop to attract submissions and attendees
• Collecting, reviewing of submitted papers, and quality assurance (e.g., open a separate Easychair website)
• Determining the program for the workshop, within the time limits provided by the conference organization
• Publishing accepted papers in electronic proceedings before the workshop date (preferably CEUR-WS)
• Ensure that workshop participants register for the workshop and the main conference
• Schedule, attend and coordinate the workshop.

Tutorial Proposal Guidelines

We invite submissions of tutorial proposals on subjects related to the main conference (see the call for papers). Proposals should be sent to the Program Chair via email (Monica Palmirani (monica.palmirani@unibo.it)). The deadline for tutorial proposals is 16 September 2018.

A tutorial proposal should be a short PDF document (max 5 pages) outlining the following ingredients:

• Title
• Organizers (more than 2, from different institutions)
• Abstract
• Motivation for the tutorial (relation to conference, timeliness)
• If the tutorial, or a very similar tutorial, has been given elsewhere, explanation of the benefit of presenting it again to the JURIX community.
• Overview of content, description of the aims, presentation style, potential/preferred prerequisite knowledge.
• Indication as to whether it is a half-day or full-day workshop.
• Intended audience and expected number of participants
• List of readings, handbook, tools used in the tutorial.

If accepted, the tutorial organizers are responsible for:

• A tutorial webpage, with links to the JURIX 2018 website
• Publicize the tutorial to attract submissions and attendees
• Determining the tutorial for the workshop, within the time limits provided by the conference organization.
• Distributing tutorial materials to attendees before the tutorial date (if needed)
• Ensure that tutorial participants register for the tutorial and the main conference.
• Schedule, attend and coordinate the tutorial.

Call for Doctoral Consortium Papers

The Jurix 2018 Doctoral Consortium aims at promoting the exchange of ideas from PhD researchers in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Law, and at providing them an opportunity to interact and receive feedback from leading scholars and experts in the field. Specifically, the Consortium seeks to provide opportunities for PhD students to:

• obtain fruitful feedback and advice on their research projects;
• meet experts from different backgrounds working on topics related to the AI & Law and Legal Information Systems fields;
• have a face to face mentoring discussion on the topic and methodology of the PhD with an international senior scholar;
• discuss concerns about research, supervision, the job market, and other career-related issues.

To be eligible for the Consortium, a candidate must be a current doctoral student within a recognised university. Ideally, the candidate should have around of 12-24 months of work remaining before expected completion. The participants of the Doctoral Consortium must register for and attend the main conference. The PhD student should be the sole author of the submission. The best thesis descriptions or research descriptions will be presented during the JURIX 2018 conference (5 minutes pitch). Each thesis description or research description accepted may be presented also with a poster (A0).

We expect submissions addressing any topic related to the AI & Law discipline, including the topics listed in the call for papers for the main conference, which include but are not limited to:

• Formal and computational models of legal reasoning, including argumentation, evidential reasoning, legal interpretation, and decision making
• Knowledge acquisition techniques for the legal domain, including natural language processing, argument and data mining
• Legal knowledge representation, including legal ontologies and common sense knowledge
• Machine Learning applied to legal text to advance legal analytics
• Automatic legal text classification and summarisation
• Automated information extraction from legal databases and texts
• Data mining applied to the legal domain
• Conceptual or model-based legal information retrieval
• E-government, e-democracy and e-justice
• Legal and Ethical issues of AI and Law technology and its applications
• Robot, Internet of Thing, AI and Big Data legal and ethics issues
• Modelling norms and legal reasoning for multi-agent systems
• Modelling negotiation and contract formation
• Technical and legal aspects of smart contracts and application of blockchain technology in the legal domain
• Big data and data analytics for and in the legal domain
• Online dispute resolution
• Intelligent legal tutoring systems
• Intelligent support systems for the legal domain
• Interdisciplinary applications of legal informatics methods and systems

Submissions

Students are invited to submit an original description of their work addressing the following aspects:

• A clear formulation of the research question;
• An identification of the significant problems in the field of research;
• An outline of the current knowledge of the problem domain, as well as the state of existing solutions;
• A presentation of preliminary ideas, the proposed approach and the results achieved so far;
• A sketch of the applied research methodology;
• A description of the PhD project’s contribution to the problem solution;
• A discussion of how the suggested solution is different, new, or better than existing approaches to the problem.

Thesis descriptions or research outcomes are limited to 6 pages in English using LNCS format and submitted electronically in PDF format jointly with a maximum 3 page CV. Please send your submissions to the Program Chair via email (Monica Palmirani (monica.palmirani@unibo.it)).

Submissions will be assessed by members from the AI and Law community who will consider how well the submissions address each of the aspects given above. The best contributions may be published in extended version inside of AICOL series (Springer) according to the special selection call for papers rules.

Important Dates

Award

The Best Paper of JURIX 2018 Doctoral Consortium Award will be assigned to the most original, innovative and well presented research.

Program committee Doctoral Consortium

• Kevin Ashley, University of Pittsburgh
• Guido Boella, University of Turin
• Pompeu Casanovas, Universitat Autonomá de Barcelona, La Trobe University
• Tom van Engers, University of Amsterdam
• Guido Governatori, CSIRO
• Monica Palmirani, CIRSFID, University of Bologna
• Henry Prakken, University of Utrecht, University of Groningen
• Antoni Roig, Universitat Autonomá de Barcelona
• Antonino Rotolo, CIRSFID
• Giovanni Sartor, University of Bologna
• Erich Schweighofer, University of Vienna
• Leon van der Torre, University of Luxembourg
• Fabio Vitali, University of Bologna
• Radboud Winkels, University of Amsterdam
• (tbd)

Call for Hackathon

Legal Data Analytics Hackathon (LeDAH)

Goal

Legal Data Analytics Hackathon aims to create applications/projects using data analytics methods applied to legal document and data. Cognitive biases should be avoided and for respecting the transparency principle we encourage to provide a self-explanation dataset, documentation, replication demo instructions, validation test set. Visualization of the results are very welcome in order to describe the results and to encourage legal practitioners, companies and citizens to use those emerging techniques.

A portal with the results of the hackathon applications/projects will be set up:

http://ledah.cirsfid.unibo.it

The winners will be presented during the JURIX 2018 conference (5 minutes pitch) and all the participants can have an exposition space in the conference. We encourage to use the following techniques:

• Machine learning
• Deep learning
• Network analysis
• Knowledge graph
• Data analytics
• Predictive algorithms
• Linked open data
• Visualization

Rules

The application must comply the following rules:

• use legal open data/document and document the dataset used for the pilot-case;
• document with details the pilot-case in the scenario purpose, the research questions, the methodological aspects, the theoretical basis, the technical methods, the evaluation criteria;
• produce a robust proof-of-concept of the results;
• provide a test case repeatable and evidence-based;
• cognitive biases and ethical issues remedies description must be provided.

The applications/projects must be published and reachable online (e.g., github, API, website) with the deadline. The team should be composed by 2-4 persons with a clear credits attribution of the contributions. The applications/projects must document with the necessary information according with the rules.

The selected applications will be invited to the in-place final event live hackathon, 24 hours refinement of the project, presentation of pitch, partial results in input, final results in output, demo, award ceremony (one winner 1000 euro and two runners up 500 euro).

Proposals should be sent to the Program Chair via email (Monica Palmirani (monica.palmirani@unibo.it)).

Important Dates

Datasets

• http://www.legislation.gov.uk/
• http://legilux.public.lu/
• https://github.com/SenatoDellaRepubblica/AkomaNtosoBulkData
• https://data.europa.eu/euodp/data/dataset/sparql-cellar-of-the-publications-office
• https://github.com/ondrae/ferguson-grand-jury-transcripts
• any other open data legal document and data

Awards

Three Awards will be assigned to the three most original, innovative and well-presented applications.

IPR issues

All the tools, contributions, results and dataset produced inside of the LAH are released with open licenses among the following:

• BSD-3-Clause License (see the source)
• MIT License (see the source)
• Apache License v 2.0 (see the source)
• CC-BY 2.0 (see the source)
• CC-BY 4.0 (see the source)
• Eclipse Public License v 1.0 (see the source)

Scientific commitee Hackathon

• John Sheridan, The National Archives, UK - President
• Adam Wyner, Swansea University
• Tom van Engers, University of Amsterdam
• (tbd)