RE: Schemas for Opinions of Federal Courts

Hello Stuart, 

 

Thanks for your interest!

 

It looks like we have generally the same Properties. I like your addition of:

        courtAppealedFrom

I might also add:

Citation of Prior Opinion

Link to Prior Opinion

Links to Cases Cited

Links to Cases Citing

 

Do you think this information would be useful enough that search engines would use it within the search results?  

 

Sam Deskin

OpenJurist.org

 

From: Stuart Robinson [mailto:stuartro@google.com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 10:54 AM
To: Sam Deskin
Cc: Thad Guidry; schema.org Mailing List
Subject: Re: Schemas for Opinions of Federal Courts

 

Hi, Sam. I posted something about this a little while back. Here's a link to my postings in the archive:

 

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-schemaorg/2015May/0027.html

 

I'd be happy to discuss this and work with you on drafting a proposal for schema.org.

 

Thanks,

Stuart

 

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Sam Deskin <sam@openjurist.org> wrote:

Hi Thad,

 

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.  I see why you might suggest Assess and React Action, but I think that I would be shoehorning judicial opinions into them.

 

Creating a new extension might be the best option, but I am not sure that it would be of much benefit to search engines or the public.  I am ambivalent about creating a new extension if search engines will not have any interest in it because there is ONE or very few websites using it.

 

Is there a way to determine whether the search engines’ “somewhat interested” attitude toward a Law extension would translate into use in search results?

 

These are the Properties that I can envision:

Court

Plaintiff-Appellant

Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellant 

Defendant-Appellee 
Third Part Defendant-Appellee

Citation(s)

Docket Number

Date Argued

Date Decided

Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellant

Attorneys for Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellant 

Attorneys for Defendant-Appellee 

Attorneys for Third Part Defendant-Appellee

Judge/Justice Hearing Matter
Judge/Justice Delivering Opinion

Holding

Area of Law

Country of Jurisdiction

Region of Jurisdiction

Company(ies) Mentioned

Individual(s) Mentioned

Cases Cited

Cases Citing

 

How do these sound to you? 

 

Sam Deskin

OpenJurist.org

 

From: Thad Guidry [mailto:thadguidry@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 6:56 PM
To: Sam Deskin
Cc: schema.org Mailing List
Subject: Re: Schemas for Opinions of Federal Courts

 

Hi Sam !

 

First, take a look at http://schema.org/AssessAction and its various properties.  I think it has some of what you will need.  Also scroll down on that page to look at more specific Types and click on them and review.

 

For example, you could sorta say right now that every appellate court judge in the United States forms a reaction (secured as a Judgement in official parlance) as this: http://schema.org/ReactAction

 

Going forward,

 

1. You probably will want to review earlier mailing list discussion threads we had, here's a few:

 

  a. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2012May/0134.html

  b. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2013Feb/0082.html

 

2. Law never did get into any formal proposal here: https://www.w3.org/wiki/index.php?title=WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposalsArchive#2011-2014_Proposals_for_Schema.org

 

Contrarily, I WOULD encourage you to begin the task of helping with a Schema.org Law extension (we do need the help in that regard from domain experts), which has been talked about briefly before and the stakeholders have a "somewhat interested" attitude toward it.  If someone such as yourself with intimate domain knowledge could take the lead in helping the community develop an extension, then that would be a terrific boon and considered "swell !" by all of us, including the stakeholders.

 

Thad

+ThadGuidry <https://www.google.com/+ThadGuidry> 

 

On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Sam Deskin <sam@openjurist.org> wrote:

Hello,

 

We are interested in marking up our website. But we want it to be useful for search engines and the public. 

 

None of the vocabularies seem to apply to our content.  We mostly have opinions of the federal appellate courts and the US Supreme Court.  Here is an example of a typical page:

                http://openjurist.org/279/us/249/international-shoe-co-v-shartel

 

It is pretty well marked up with classes, but not with schemas.

 

<p class="case_cite">279 U.S. 249</p>

<p class="case_cite">49 S.Ct. 380</p>

<p class="case_cite">73 L.Ed. 781</p>

<p class="parties">INTERNATIONAL SHOE CO.<br/>v.<br/>SHARTEL, Attorney General of Missouri, et al.</p>

<p class="docket">No. 579.</p>

<p class="date">Argued April 25, 1929.</p>

<p class="date">Decided May 13, 1929.</p>

<div class="prelims">

<p class="indent">Messrs. Guy A. Thompson and James D. Williamson, both of St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.</p>

<p class="indent">Mr. Walter E. Sloat, of Jefferson City, Mo., pro hac vice, by special leave of court, for appellees.</p>

<p class="indent">Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.</p>

 

We would like to include schemas into the code if google, et al., will use them in displaying the search results to improve the information our search results provide to the public. But don’t particularly want to spin our wheels and waste resources if it will not make a difference.

 

Do you think adding schemas will improve the information search providers provide to the public?

 

Which schema should we use or should we extend our own?  My guess would be that creating an extension would make it even less likely that Google will use the information to improve search results. But none of the existing schemas seem to fit. Suggestions would he welcome.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Sam Deskin

OpenJurist.org