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Show HN: LawPatch – JQuery for Law Using Git

21 points by pjbrow 11y ago

brudgers 11y ago
Clear wording and incorporation by reference is very similar to the way the details of construction contracts and building regulations work in the United States. Home page of LawPatch: http://lawpatch.org/ http://lawpatch.org/
- pjbrow 11y ago
  Yep - that's how the commercial technical detail is often dealt with. We're stretching (and slightly rejigging) the same concept to legally substantive text.
russnewcomer 11y ago
I like this idea in general, as a non-lawyer who tries to read things I'm signing, but I wonder if foot-noting or other in-document attribution system is a better answer? I can see struggles where a contract written with LawPatch is consulted in 10-15 years, and there are dead links or other similar technical problems. I don't see where LawPatch addresses that, unless I'm missing something?
- pjbrow 11y ago
  Agree that foot / end noting is another good way to do it - the important thing is the drafting technique rather than the way it's implemented. We're using Github permalinks to cover the linking issue for now, but we're discussing more permanent options. Would be interested to hear what other ways people think would work. There's also the option for users to download the repos and use the commit hash in the document proper for reference.
- ckluis 11y ago
  It feels like the actual contract could be split into two columns for each item (intent & legalese) which would serve the same benefit without requiring looking up external terms.
pjbrow 11y ago
Hi everyone, I'm a contributor to LawPatch. We started this project because we wanted legal positions that we could call like functions (as if we were coding). Our aim is to make legal language simple without introducing ambiguity or extra risk. We think even the most technical legal agreements could look like term sheets using this drafting method. A spectrum of standardised positions also stops lawyers from constantly replicating work. This is is an open source project by lawyers who are also developers - we'd love to hear from anyone who's got ideas for improvements or would like to contribute language for other areas. We have patches drafted for the United States, UK and Australia. Happy to hear from people in other countries too! Creating this extra level of abstraction is also an opportunity to standardize documents across jurisdictions.
anonbanker 11y ago
On a day that Drupal 8 Was released, nmap 7 was released, and bitcoin got it's first visa-backed debit card, this is the biggest thing I've seen today.
mengwong 11y ago
Nice work! Other projects in this space include http://www.commonaccord.org/ http://www.commonaccord.org/ and http://www.contractstandards.com/clause http://www.contractstandards.com/clause I am tracking instances of this genre at http://www.legalese.io/#priorart http://www.legalese.io/#priorart

21 points by pjbrow 11y ago

Clear wording and incorporation by reference is very similar to the way the details of construction contracts and building regulations work in the United States. Home page of LawPatch: http://lawpatch.org/ http://lawpatch.org/

pjbrow 11y ago
Yep - that's how the commercial technical detail is often dealt with. We're stretching (and slightly rejigging) the same concept to legally substantive text.

russnewcomer 11y ago

I like this idea in general, as a non-lawyer who tries to read things I'm signing, but I wonder if foot-noting or other in-document attribution system is a better answer? I can see struggles where a contract written with LawPatch is consulted in 10-15 years, and there are dead links or other similar technical problems. I don't see where LawPatch addresses that, unless I'm missing something?

pjbrow 11y ago
Agree that foot / end noting is another good way to do it - the important thing is the drafting technique rather than the way it's implemented. We're using Github permalinks to cover the linking issue for now, but we're discussing more permanent options. Would be interested to hear what other ways people think would work. There's also the option for users to download the repos and use the commit hash in the document proper for reference.
ckluis 11y ago
It feels like the actual contract could be split into two columns for each item (intent & legalese) which would serve the same benefit without requiring looking up external terms.

pjbrow 11y ago

Hi everyone, I'm a contributor to LawPatch. We started this project because we wanted legal positions that we could call like functions (as if we were coding). Our aim is to make legal language simple without introducing ambiguity or extra risk. We think even the most technical legal agreements could look like term sheets using this drafting method. A spectrum of standardised positions also stops lawyers from constantly replicating work. This is is an open source project by lawyers who are also developers - we'd love to hear from anyone who's got ideas for improvements or would like to contribute language for other areas. We have patches drafted for the United States, UK and Australia. Happy to hear from people in other countries too! Creating this extra level of abstraction is also an opportunity to standardize documents across jurisdictions.

anonbanker 11y ago

On a day that Drupal 8 Was released, nmap 7 was released, and bitcoin got it's first visa-backed debit card, this is the biggest thing I've seen today.

mengwong 11y ago

Nice work! Other projects in this space include http://www.commonaccord.org/ http://www.commonaccord.org/ and http://www.contractstandards.com/clause http://www.contractstandards.com/clause I am tracking instances of this genre at http://www.legalese.io/#priorart http://www.legalese.io/#priorart