
Ask HN: Does this “legal” programming language exist? - newman8r
As I was reviewing some legal documents, a realization hit me - these are generally very logical documents (ideally).<p>Are there any programming languages that allow the user to do imports on larger legal documents, define terms, define conditions, and compile into an actionable legal document?<p>If not - anyone down to hack together a prototype with me?
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brudgers
Basically, such a language would be a DSL (domain specific language). They
exist, but the scope necessarily has to be domain specific, such as insurance
contracts or the work of an individual law firm. The reason is that the higher
level legal abstractions have to map to _aggregates_ of lower level level
abstractions in the same way as a high level programming language maps to
lower level languages such as machine code.

Essentially, the language has to expand to boiler plate and the process is
roughly equivalent to compiling.

My advice for attracting collaborators is to hack something together first so
that people don't face the blank piece of paper problem and are more likely to
know what they are stepping into.

Good luck.

~~~
newman8r
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction - I am going to look into domain
specific languages. Now that I look at these I realize I've used a handful of
them but never had the conceptual model of a DSL to place them in - much
appreciated.

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tlack
I had pondered a different approach: using machine learning coupled with
something like Prolog or Microsoft Z3, but never got around to it.

You could probably make quite a bit of money helping companies get out of bad
contracts due to minor errors in legalese.

I don't think I have time right now to help though. Keep me updated.

~~~
newman8r
I'm thinking of open sourcing it and releasing it for free - my target use is
the small business or startup who is clueless and can't afford good legal
help. Maybe they could use this to maintain contracts, operating agreements -
track changes via version control - of course, all contracts would probably
need to be reviewed by some sort of legal professional but if it checks out,
it's a lot cheaper than having them create the contracts from scratch.

I'll make a note of your interest and will update you if I release a demo.

