NCJ Number
72522
Editor(s)
B K Eres
Date Published
1980
Length
306 pages
Annotation
Current and future endeavors in the areas of Federal and State legislative information processing; information processing and the law; litigation, the courts, and computers; and other applications of computers to the law are discussed.
Abstract
The section on Federal legislative information processing presents general and specific discussions of the history, needs, current status, and future plans of the U.S. Congress regarding information technology. The chapters on State legislative information processing describe developments in information processing in this area in the early 1970's, along with the organization and management of information support services, the hardware and software used, access methods, system security precautions, and cost considerations. The State legislative information processing systems used by Florida, Virginia, and Washington are also described. The section on information processing and the law examines the four basic functional types of legal research: practice, doctrinal, fact, and nondoctrinal. Further, the historical developments and current practices of textual information-retrieval systems are described, specifically two commercial systems, LEXIS and WESTLAW. JURIS, the computerized legal research system of the U.S. Department of Justice, is also discussed. The section on litigation, the courts, and computer through computerized litigation information management and improved efficiency in court management. Applications of computers to law are also examined in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, the area of environmental law, and the computerization of traditional Jewish case law. Notes accompany each chapter, with some chapters providing a bibliography. Both a table of contents and a subject index are included.