Legal N-Grams? A Simple Approach to Track the ‘Evolution’ of Legal Language

Proceedings of JURIX 2011: The 24th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, Vienna, 2011

7 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2011

See all articles by Daniel Martin Katz

Daniel Martin Katz

Illinois Tech - Chicago Kent College of Law; Bucerius Center for Legal Technology & Data Science; Stanford CodeX - The Center for Legal Informatics; 273 Ventures

Michael James Bommarito

273 Ventures; Licensio, LLC; Stanford Center for Legal Informatics; Michigan State College of Law; Bommarito Consulting, LLC

Julie Seaman

Emory University School of Law

Adam Candeub

Michigan State University - College of Law

Eugene Agichtein

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: December 13, 2011

Abstract

In this paper, we highlight the potential of n-grams as a vehicle to explore the ‘evolution’ of the law and legal language. Using the full text corpus of decisions of the United States Supreme Court (1791-2005), we explore the n-gram space, offer some initial results based upon our calculations and highlight the beta version of our n-gram search interface.

Keywords: N-Grams, Computational Linguistics, Law, Courts, Judges, Evolution of Law, Legal Memes, Time Series

Suggested Citation

Katz, Daniel Martin and Bommarito, Michael James and Seaman, Julie and Candeub, Adam and Agichtein, Eugene, Legal N-Grams? A Simple Approach to Track the ‘Evolution’ of Legal Language (December 13, 2011). Proceedings of JURIX 2011: The 24th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, Vienna, 2011 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1971953 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1971953

Daniel Martin Katz (Contact Author)

Illinois Tech - Chicago Kent College of Law ( email )

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Bucerius Center for Legal Technology & Data Science ( email )

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Stanford CodeX - The Center for Legal Informatics ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://law.stanford.edu/directory/daniel-katz/

273 Ventures ( email )

HOME PAGE: http://273ventures.com

Licensio, LLC ( email )

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Stanford Center for Legal Informatics ( email )

559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
United States

Michigan State College of Law ( email )

318 Law College Building
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
United States

Bommarito Consulting, LLC ( email )

MI 48098
United States

Julie Seaman

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

Adam Candeub

Michigan State University - College of Law ( email )

318 Law College Building
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
United States

Eugene Agichtein

affiliation not provided to SSRN

No Address Available

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