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Ask HN: Recommendation for an App to Help Navigate the Legal System

1 points by gitgud 8y ago

Are there any apps that can help you navigate a country's legal system? There are plenty to learn legal system. But I want an app which describes the law in different levels of detail and helps quickly find laws/regulations in specific areas. Does anyone know of something like this? Or anything similar?

bradknowles 8y ago
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and nothing I say here can be taken as legal advice. The problem that you have here is that what comprises the “legal system” varies by locality, and there are infinite varieties thereof. At the highest level, we have the laws as they are written, in each of the many jurisdictions — many of which may overlap, and have confusing interpretations as to which takes precedence when. Then we have the laws as they are officially interpreted and written down by the courts. Again, with many potential overlapping jurisdictions and interpretations. This is called “Legal Precedence”. Then we have the laws as they are interpreted and applied by the courts and legal system, but where those acts are not written down. Many laws firms have built a business on deeply understanding just a tiny sliver of that stack, and they know that when the laws as written and the precedence is applied will differ when handled by one judge versus another. Things get even more weird when you talk about laws in one country versus those in another. And most lawyers who are familiar with a good understanding of laws in one jurisdiction may not have any useful knowledge of laws in another jurisdiction — in fact, their beliefs about those laws might be detrimental. For example, France doesn’t have a Federal Legal system. They have Common Law, which means a great deal of what would go into a contract doesn’t need to be written down, because it’s considered common, and therefore there is nothing you could write down in a contract that would override it. The international insurance giant Chubb had a case go all the way up to the French Supreme Court (Court of Cassation), which hinged on whether or not you should adhere to the spirit of a contract or the letter of the contract. Chubb wanted to avoid paying out millions of dollars on a particular claim, so they advocated for adhering to the spirit of the contract — unlike the rest of the entire multi-trillion dollar insurance industry. You can imagine how the rest of the industry felt about that. Fortunately for them, Chubb lost. In China, if you were to look at the laws as written, you might think they were quite reasonable. In reality, the law in China is really whatever the judge says it is, and the written law is pretty meaningless. So, any contact under Chinese law is really only enforceable to the degree that you can get the judge to make it so — whatever that might take. In both France and China, the only official legal version of a contract is the one written in their native language. Any version in any other language is just “for your information” and has no legal bearing whatsoever. Moreover, there is no requirement for a translation to be accurate. So, you might think you’re signing a contract that says one thing, and in reality the contract says something totally different. Finally, plenty of lawyers seem to have Hubris as a major problem, and they seem to think that because they read all the books, they know everything there is to know about a particular law or jurisdiction. And lawyers aren’t the only ones to make this mistake. So, to think that you can incorporate all this knowledge into a single simple system, well that is ... folly. A Fools Paradise of the highest order. Lexis-Nexis would be happy to sell you a license to their system, but that only scratches the surface and only in some jurisdictions, and is only useful to you if you already know the pitfalls of the legal system, and you know how to use the tool to give you the answers you need. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and nothing I say here can be taken as legal advice. That said, my wife is a lawyer, and she has built her practice on trying to help her clients avoid legal land mines with regards to doing business internationally.
- gitgud 8y ago
  I appreciate your detailed response, and am fascinated by the complexity of legal systems around the world. I can reveal that I'm from Australia and our legal system seems to be good, but there's so much legislation to sift through to find something! One thing in common with all countries legal systems is that they are extremely complex, and no single person has an understanding of the entire system. It's also apparent that laws only become more complicated as different amendments account for more different situations. I think a good analogy for a legal-system is a software-system, here are some similarities: - Both begin as simple systems and become more sophisticated to account for more conditions. - Both use a language of logic to determine how things happen. - Both usually only add more code, not delete old code. There are many subtleties in Law, but in essence it's just a set of rules (albeit complex) which a society has to live by. The system I'm proposing would not be simple, and all-encompassing, but it should be easy to query: - Laws/regulations - Related precedence (cases, trials) - History of changes Maybe it could simply be a CMS which links to legitimate government websites. I just thought it could be made simpler to digest for citizens (not lawyers) with software...

1 points by gitgud 8y ago

bradknowles 8y ago

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and nothing I say here can be taken as legal advice. The problem that you have here is that what comprises the “legal system” varies by locality, and there are infinite varieties thereof. At the highest level, we have the laws as they are written, in each of the many jurisdictions — many of which may overlap, and have confusing interpretations as to which takes precedence when. Then we have the laws as they are officially interpreted and written down by the courts. Again, with many potential overlapping jurisdictions and interpretations. This is called “Legal Precedence”. Then we have the laws as they are interpreted and applied by the courts and legal system, but where those acts are not written down. Many laws firms have built a business on deeply understanding just a tiny sliver of that stack, and they know that when the laws as written and the precedence is applied will differ when handled by one judge versus another. Things get even more weird when you talk about laws in one country versus those in another. And most lawyers who are familiar with a good understanding of laws in one jurisdiction may not have any useful knowledge of laws in another jurisdiction — in fact, their beliefs about those laws might be detrimental. For example, France doesn’t have a Federal Legal system. They have Common Law, which means a great deal of what would go into a contract doesn’t need to be written down, because it’s considered common, and therefore there is nothing you could write down in a contract that would override it. The international insurance giant Chubb had a case go all the way up to the French Supreme Court (Court of Cassation), which hinged on whether or not you should adhere to the spirit of a contract or the letter of the contract. Chubb wanted to avoid paying out millions of dollars on a particular claim, so they advocated for adhering to the spirit of the contract — unlike the rest of the entire multi-trillion dollar insurance industry. You can imagine how the rest of the industry felt about that. Fortunately for them, Chubb lost. In China, if you were to look at the laws as written, you might think they were quite reasonable. In reality, the law in China is really whatever the judge says it is, and the written law is pretty meaningless. So, any contact under Chinese law is really only enforceable to the degree that you can get the judge to make it so — whatever that might take. In both France and China, the only official legal version of a contract is the one written in their native language. Any version in any other language is just “for your information” and has no legal bearing whatsoever. Moreover, there is no requirement for a translation to be accurate. So, you might think you’re signing a contract that says one thing, and in reality the contract says something totally different. Finally, plenty of lawyers seem to have Hubris as a major problem, and they seem to think that because they read all the books, they know everything there is to know about a particular law or jurisdiction. And lawyers aren’t the only ones to make this mistake. So, to think that you can incorporate all this knowledge into a single simple system, well that is ... folly. A Fools Paradise of the highest order. Lexis-Nexis would be happy to sell you a license to their system, but that only scratches the surface and only in some jurisdictions, and is only useful to you if you already know the pitfalls of the legal system, and you know how to use the tool to give you the answers you need. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and nothing I say here can be taken as legal advice. That said, my wife is a lawyer, and she has built her practice on trying to help her clients avoid legal land mines with regards to doing business internationally.

gitgud 8y ago
I appreciate your detailed response, and am fascinated by the complexity of legal systems around the world. I can reveal that I'm from Australia and our legal system seems to be good, but there's so much legislation to sift through to find something! One thing in common with all countries legal systems is that they are extremely complex, and no single person has an understanding of the entire system. It's also apparent that laws only become more complicated as different amendments account for more different situations. I think a good analogy for a legal-system is a software-system, here are some similarities: - Both begin as simple systems and become more sophisticated to account for more conditions. - Both use a language of logic to determine how things happen. - Both usually only add more code, not delete old code. There are many subtleties in Law, but in essence it's just a set of rules (albeit complex) which a society has to live by. The system I'm proposing would not be simple, and all-encompassing, but it should be easy to query: - Laws/regulations - Related precedence (cases, trials) - History of changes Maybe it could simply be a CMS which links to legitimate government websites. I just thought it could be made simpler to digest for citizens (not lawyers) with software...