LegalXML Member Section Briefing

1/31/2006 OLSI Standards Interoperability Meeting

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OLSI Standards Interoperability Meeting

LegalXML Member Section Briefing

Donald L. Bergeron – LexisNexisJames Cusick – Wolters Kluwer

January 31, 2006


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LegalXML Member Section Briefing• Introduction

– LegalXML - Who?– Member Section - Why?

• Active Technical Committees – What?– Integrated Justice – Electronic Court Filing– Court Documents (Subcommittee of ECF)– eContracts

• On Hold & New Proposals – What Next?– eNotarization – Regrouping– Online Dispute Resolution – On Hold– LEG-REG Compliance? – Invitation to Propose New Ideas & TCs


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Introduction – LegalXML Who?• LegalXML.org Community – 1998

– LegalXML.org began as a group of legal, court, business, academic and technology professionals interested in creating non-proprietary standards for the legal community. The goal is to provide efficient and effective communication of operational and research legal materials within this diverse domain.

– It aligned it’s efforts into Work Groups that focused on specific task areas, such as Court Filing, Citations, Contracts and a Horizontal Work Group to focus on consistency and interoperability between these efforts.

• LegalXML Inc. – December 2000– LegalXML Inc. was created to provide funding for the efforts begun

under LegalXML.org. • OASIS LegalXML Member Section – March 2002

– LegalXML joined with OASIS as a Member Section to initialize the experience, the technology and the support environment that is essential for the successful development of XML standards.

– Through the open tried-and-true OASIS technical process and infrastructure participants focus all the energy on developing standardized structures, vocabularies and data exchange tools for the legal community.

– Work Groups migrated to become Technical Committees (TCs)


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Introduction – LegalXML Why?

• OASIS LegalXML Member Section Focuses on supporting it’s Technical Committees by:– Funding, infrastructure and organization– Liaison with the OASIS Board, management

and staff– Providing consultants to move the design &

writing of the standards ahead– Providing meeting support– Providing coordination and exploitation of

synergies between the TCs – Encouraging Collaboration with UBL, EBXML

and other OASIS TCs


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Active Technical Committees - What?

• Integrated Justice • Electronic Court Filing• Court Document (Subcommittee of

ECF)

• eContracts


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LegalXML Integrated Justice TCwww.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalxml-intjustice

• What is the context for Integrated Justice?

• What are Methodology, Naming, and Design Rules?

• Why is the MNDR the current focus?

• What is effected by this effort?


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What is the context for Integrated Justice? • Global Justice Information Sharing

Initiative (Global) - http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=8

• Justice Extensible Markup Language Data Model (Global JXDM - GJXDM) - http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=43

• National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) - http://niem.gov/


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Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) - http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=8

• Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) and advises the U.S. Attorney General on justice information sharing and integration initiatives

• Global was created to support the broad scale exchange of pertinent justice and public safety information

• It promotes standards-based electronic information exchange to provide the justice community with timely, accurate, complete, and accessible information in a secure and trusted environment

• Global is a ''group of groups,'' representing more than thirty independent organizations spanning the spectrum of law enforcement, judicial, correctional, and related bodies


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Justice Extensible Markup Language Data Model (Global JXDM - GJXDM) - http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=43

• Made up a Data Dictionary & Data Structures• Data Dictionary was built from an analysis of ECF 1.0,

1.1, Nlets (www.nlets.org) and FBI• Authored and managed by Georgia Tech Research

Institute (GTRI)• Integrated Justice & ECF heavily involved in

development and testing• Designed around OOA/OOD approach• Data Dictionary very effective but, the Data Structures

are less so• Composablity with other standards a major concern

http://www.nlets.org/


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National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) - http://niem.gov/

• NIEM is an interagency initiative to provide the foundation and building blocks for national-level interoperable information sharing and data exchange

• It is initiated as a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with outreach to other departments and agencies

• The NIEM will leverage both the extensive Global JXDM reference model and the comprehensive Global JXDM XML-based framework and support infrastructure

• Members of Integrated Justice TC sit on the advisory council

http://niem.gov/


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Exchange Document Methodology, Naming, and Design Rules (MNDR) – Current Focus

• What is being designed? – Information Exchange Package Descriptions

(IEPD)– IEPDs are a package of schemas, and the

design artifacts that created them – Contains

• Document samples• Object Diagrams• Object Model to GJXDM Data Dictionary Mapping

Spreadsheets• Schemas• Document Instances


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• What are Methodology, Naming, and Design Rules? – Provides the framework for creating IEPDs in

a disciplined way that shows the work so that the results could be trusted!

– Based on experience gained in many workshops by IJTC, NCSC Search and GTRI

– Based on the IEPD model used by UBL and the Department of the Navy


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• What is effected by this effort?– ECF 3.0 is expressed as an IEPD designed under this

methodology– Court Document 3.0 will be based on the

methodologies defined and will create IEPDs within the constructs

– Court Document may propose additions for styling representations and methods via change control proposals to this effort


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Legacy Artifacts and Direction –• Legacy Artifacts

– Prosecution Charging Document– Adult Protection Order– Traffic Citations– Sentencing order– Court Disposition– Incident Report– Arrest/Booking Document– Field Interview Report (FIR)

• Migrate these the IEPDs under the MNDR when it they are approved

• Track and evolve to new releases of GJXDM & NIEM


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LegalXML Electronic Court Filing TCwww.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/courtfiling

Electronic Court Filing (ECF) 3.0 – Current Effort

• What is ECF 3.0 and its status? – ECF 3.0 is a specification for supporting applications

that:• Deliver a payload (usually document(s)) to and from a Court• Provide sufficient exposed metadata to place the payload

into the register of actions (docket) of a court even when the filing is for a new case

• Support information needed to notify other parties related to the case of the filing of the payload

• Adapt to the business and technical requirements and constraints of the courts

– ECF 3.0 is Court Focused • ECF 3.0 development is formally linked with the courts. • This specification was written and submitted for review and

approval to the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and the National Association for Court Management (NACM), via their Joint Technical Committee (JTC)


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• What is ECF 3.0 and its status? - continued– ECF 3.0 was Robustly Developed

• Developed within a collaboration that included national and state court leaders and technologists, academics, and vendors of programs and systems for courts

• Created within OASIS LegalXML standards organization to utilize the standards development methods/tools, and resource acquisition/coordination/deployment

• Used the best practices and standards packaging model develop by the LegalXML Integrated Justice TC

– Status• Accepted for review by COSCA/NACM Joint Tech as

“proposed standards.”• Beta use solicitation is underway for courts and vendors.


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• Why is ECF 3.0 important?– Bridges Human World to Electronic World

• Software cannot ask "what did you really mean by that? • To ensure those meanings are clear, the

– information exchanges have to be carefully defined – structures have to be understood and built to match or

map to other structures– meaning of terms and relationships must be precisely

defined with exactness and specificity

– Based on Experience & Research• Real world experience with ECF 1.0 and ECF 1.1• Standards for Electronic Filing Processes (Technical and

Business Approaches) , approved in 2003, provided the basic vision for electronic filing in the courts

– used in developing ECF 3.0– standards against which the ECF Technical Committee

tested the ECF 3.0 specification


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• Why is ECF 3.0 important?– Supports Interoperability

• If someone who files documents in more than one court had to completely restructure the XML data element terms, the data model, the messaging structures, and so forth, it would be quickly evident that electronic filing would be more confusing and expensive than continuing to handle documents in traditional, paper-based modes.

• The electronic filing system of one court depends on the success of electronic filing in other courts—each will succeed only when those who litigate and file documents enjoy substantial efficiencies and savings.

• This can only occur if the same technical structures and procedures underlie each court’s electronic filing application.


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• Why is ECF 3.0 important?– Supports Adaptability

• Courts are not created by cookie cutters• Rules of each managing jurisdiction are likely to be

different • Administrative procedures also change • Beyond the practice of the law, court management must

implement the standard financial fees, payment and reporting obligations created by statute and regulation.

• Subject to the technical requirements of their implementing and supporting organizations

– may be specific to a court, an administrative office of the courts for a state and in a increasing situation state technology of the office of the state in the executive branch

– This standard uses communication profiles and other means to support these requirements


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• How is information exchanged within this E-Filing Standard?– Information Exchanges

• ECF 3.0 is mostly about communication• Electronic court filing involves several electronic

information exchanges, each of which involves one or more messages that constitute the exchange.

– Messages• Information exchanges are done in the form of

messages being sent back and forth through the system in the form of XML structures that have strictly defined definitions

• Allowance has been made for the need to extend these structures


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• What is the logical structure of an ECF 3.0 system?– Logical System –

• Used and Object Oriented Analysis and design methodology

• Focused on Use Cases to define the information exchanges

– Message Targets – Major Design Elements• Defined targets of the messages within the logical

system under design


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• How does the logical structure relate the software implementation?– The Implementation Design Task - Assigning MDEs to

Implementation Sub-systems and Components– Message Profiles – Adapting to the messaging

approaches used within application architecture– Implementations are Subject to Court Legacy

Systems– Implementations are Subject To Organizational

Standards & Architecture


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Legacy Standards• “LegalXML” Standards

– Electronic Court Filing 1.0 (2000) LegalXML Inc.– Electronic Court Filing 1.1 (2001) LegalXML Inc.– Court Document 1.1 (2002) [Focused on Loosely

Structured Documents] LegalXML Inc.– Query & Response (2002) LegalXML Inc.

• Status– All approved by Sponsoring Organization

COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee as “proposed standards.”

– All in use today by courts and vendors.– None advanced by LegalXML for approval as

“recommended standards.”


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LegalXML Court Document Subcommittee

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=courtfiling-doc• Recently revitalized effort to provide mission critical payload document definitions for the courts.

• Focusing on highly structured documents such as forms that drive a high rate of activity and therefore a potentially great cost savings and potential for increases in user satisfaction

• Reflects that documents are not just XML objects but human interaction points where readability and styling are critical

• Reflects that content any styling must still remain separate factors of design


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LegalXML Court Document Subcommittee

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=courtfiling-doc• Beginning with use-cases and requirements

• Using MNDR as a basis for development• Will use extensive experiments with

XSLT and XSL-FO standards based approaches for document rendering definitions

• Using OASIS open process to avoid the introduction of proprietary solutions


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LegalXML eContracts www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalxml-econtracts

• The eContracts Technical Committee will develop open XML standards for contract documents and terms

• Develop markup of contract documents to enable efficient: – Creation

– Maintenance

– Management

– Exchange

– Publication


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LegalXML eContracts www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalxml-econtracts

• Using a use-case based development process• Used experiments with schema based and metadata based

to determine approach to be used in the TC.• Schema based approach was chosen and will

be based on the Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML™) 1.0 schema (http://www.elkera.com/cms/products/bnml_schema/)

• BNML 1.0 is used under an open source license agreement• Schema will be specialized and adapted to meet the needs

identified in the usecases• Such development is underway at this time• This choice does not invalidate other

approaches such as metadata for use outside this TC.


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New Proposals & On Hold – What’s Next?

• eNotarization – Regrouping• Online Dispute Resolution – On Hold

• Legislative & Regulatory Compliance – ???

• … Welcome New Proposals! Please send proposals to specific TCs or to the Steering Committee if it is a new area of interest

LegalXML Member Section Briefing

Documents

Transcript of LegalXML Member Section Briefing