RE: Legal issues and services extension

With reference to usage of signed PDF for official, legal records, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-Readable_Documents

 

Owen

 

From: Thomas Francart [mailto:thomas.francart@sparna.fr] 
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 3:02 AM
To: Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu>
Cc: Timothy Holborn <timothy.holborn@gmail.com>; schema.org Mailing List <public-schemaorg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Legal issues and services extension

 

Margaret

 

2016-11-13 18:44 GMT+01:00 Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu <mailto:mdhagan@stanford.edu> >:

Hi Timothy,

 

Yes, perhaps it should be civics, rather than legal. My only concern is that some legal issues aren’t about the government-to-citizen relationship (like civics would imply), but about family matters (divorce, child custody, child support, domestic violence — these are some of the most common-searched legal help topics), corporate matters, contracts, property, etc.

 

I’ve been working with courts and legal clinics to create an initial classification of the types of information that need to be delivered to end-users, as they search for help.

 

The information classes are in 4 main categories:

 

1. Legal conditions (the issues that the legal system can help you solve, like needs for a name change, clearing record, starting a company, getting a divorce, protection against an abuser, response to eviction, etc. — taking how people describe their problems and framing it into legal terms)

2. Service providers (the govt., private, non-profit, and online/DIY services that can help a person deal with this condition, and where they’re located, what their availability is, and what eligibility factors they require)

3. Legal process (the tasks, forms, deadlines, fees, and other procedural information to know to deal with the condition)

4. Legal rules/codes (the official, jurisdiction-specific statements from the govt. about what is allowed, what rights people have, what duties they have, etc.)

 

For your point 4 above, please have a look at the proposed legal.schema.org <http://legal.schema.org>  extension : https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1156 and examples of how to describe a legislation in a legal portal using schema.org <http://schema.org>  plus this extension at http://legal.eli-legislation-schemaorg.appspot.com/Legislation. Please contribute if you have comments or ideas.

 

The ideal is that search engines can serve jurisdiction-correct, official-sourced information about what a person’s problem is in legal terms, what the local law says about it, what steps they can take to fix it, and who they can reach out to for help.

 

The proposed extension adresses some of these items :

* the notion of a legal document being "official" or not (a signed PDF document is official, the HTML version is informative only) (legislationLegalValue)
* the notion of a legislation being currently in force or not ("not yet" in force or "not anymore" in force, i.e. abrogated/repealed) (legislationLegalForce)
* the applicability area of a legislation (spatialCoverage)
* the applicability time span of a legislation (temporalCoverage)
* the official service/ministry they can call for question about the legislation (legislationResponsible)

We want also to give the ability for search engines to serve "jusrisdiction-correct", "official-sourced" and currently-applicable legislation documents.

Thomas

 

The legal rules/codes schema may be covered by the wiki categories, and the service providers may be covered by existing schema.org <http://schema.org> .

 

Let me know what you think! Best, Margaret

 

On November 13, 2016 at 9:16:24 AM, Timothy Holborn (timothy.holborn@gmail.com <mailto:timothy.holborn@gmail.com> ) wrote:

Hi Margaret, 

 

I have a feeling this may be better refined as civics.schema.org <http://civics.schema.org>   

 

A few links: 

https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1337 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Civics


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Law


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rights

 

However i also understand some forms of lawPractice are far less 'civics' related than others.  The use-cases you've illustrated are well within the civics domain, i'd also add homelessness and amenities (which in-turn have local laws attributed, for instance),

 

and am otherwise interested to hear your thoughts.

 

It is very early morning here.  can respond with more info later today. 

 

On Mon, 14 Nov 2016 at 03:20 Margaret Hagan <mdhagan@stanford.edu <mailto:mdhagan@stanford.edu> > wrote:

Hi,

 

I was wondering if anyone knew of an extension for legal issues, rules, and/or services.

 

I work at Stanford Law & d.school, and I’ve got support to build out an extension for information about common legal help conditions, like evictions, domestic violence protection, and clearing your criminal record. The goal is to offer reliable information akin to the medical/health extension.

 

I wanted to check if there’s anyone else who has been working on a similar law extension, so I’m not duplicating efforts.

 

Thanks! Best, Margaret

 




-- 

 

Thomas Francart - SPARNA
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