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Computers Can and Do Help Lawyers
Over the weekend 27th-29th September, 1974, the
Society held its first Conference on Computers and the
Law at Oxford. The Conference may fairly be described
as international, since its 156 delegates came from 16
different countries. Over half were lawyers.
The Conference dealt with matters of direct practical
importance to lawyers, such as Land Charges and
Accounting systems; but it also allowed delegates a
glimpse of the future in information retrieval. The
topics covered by papers and discussion were backed
by practical demonstrations of working systems, the
theme throughout the Conference being, not merely
that computers are able to aid lawyers, but that they
are already doing so.
The Conference opened with a champagne reception
in the Colonnade of Magdalen College, followed by an
introductory talk on computers by Mr. Norman Price
of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. On the Saturday
morning, Mr. Colin Tapper gave the history of in-
formation retrieval by computer, paying particular
attention to the systems demonstrated at the Confer-
ence — LEXIS, STATUS, IBM's STAIRS package,
and Queen's University, Belfast's QUOBIRD system
which was demonstrated live with help from Inter-
national Computers Limited. Mr. Tapper pointed out
that the first two were primarily designed for legal
materials and the last two were adapted for the law.
Mr. Tapper also discussed the Italian Court of Cassa-
tion system, designed by Univac, who staged an excell-
ent audio-visual presentation at the Conference. Mr.
Tapper described the respective merits of recording a
full text as against the provision merely of an index to
information, maintaining that the one system did not
necessarily exclude the other.
This talk was followed by detailed discussions of
information retrieval systems. Mr. Jerome Rubin,
President of Mead Data Central, Inc., described how
LEXIS, a system originally developed for the Ohio
Bar, and now available elsewhere in America, allows
lawyers in their offices and judges in court to retrieve
federal and state statutes and court decisions. This
system was demonstrated by satellite from America.
Dr. B. Niblett of the University of Kent, Canterbury,
discussed the STATUS system of the U.K. Atomic
Energy Authority, of which he is a pioneer. This
provides techniques for searching and browsing through
statutes and statutory instruments. Professor F. J.
Smith of Belfast discussed QUOB I RD and M. André
Wallemacq spoke about the Belgian CREDOC system,
which provides quick documentation for the legal
profession in Belgium and is largely financed by that
profession.
Saturday afternoon was devoted to a different area of
computer applications for lawyers — legislative and
Government systems. Mr. Stephen Skelly, Jurimetrics
Adviser to the Department of Justice of the Govern-
ment of Canada, spoke of the advantages and difficul-
ties of using a computer for legislative drafting. In
the discussion that followed, Mr. Francis Bennion,
a British Parliamentary Counsel, described an experi-
ment he is about to start in this field. The Canadian
experience in providing assistance via the computer
seems to show distinct advantages in the British context.
Following this talk, the Chief Land Registrar, Mr.
T. B. F. Ruoff, spoke of his system for Land Charges
searching, which had gone live earlier in the same
month, and is now being used by English and Welsh
solicitors on a daily basis. Then Mr. R. A. Leylands of
Leeds Corporation described the LAMIS project (Local
Authority Management Information Systems) which
Leeds in pioneering with help from International Com-
puters Limited. This system is based on the property
in an authority's area and (inter alia) is designed to
provide relevant information needed by purchasers and
developers for whom its interest lies in the possibility of
a dramatic improvement in searching for local Land
Charges and making Supplementary enquiries.
On the Sunday, Mr. Richard Morgan of the Solic-
itors' Law Stationery Society, Limited, spoke of Office
Management Applications — legal accounting, trust
accounts, time recording and drafting, with a glance at
litigation support. He emphasised the importance of
having a terminal for these systems fully compatible
with systems for information retrieval. He described the
systems demonstrated or displayed at the Conference
including the Dataplex drafting and accounts system,
Browne Time Sharing's Word One drafting system, the
Law Society's Time Recording System marketed by
Centre-File, and the Solicitors' Law Stationery Society's
on-line accounts system and batch (off-line) accounts
and time recording systems.
Mr. Nicolas Bellord ,an English Solicitor, who has
written his own on-line accounts and time recording
systems, (both demonstrated at the Conference), raised
a number of practical points, particularly stressing the
importance of using a computer on those aspects of a
lawyer's work that took so much of his time.
The last session consisted of brief reports from a
number of distinguished overseas visitors from Sweden,
Norway, and ^West Germany. This was followed by a
general discussion which concerned itself largely with
a proportion of time a lawyer spends on a search. The
closing paper was given by Mr. Alan Woods, Chair-
man of the Society.
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