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Ask HN: Is There an IDE for Lawyers?
Is there any kind of tool(s) that lawyers or politicians use to write law? Like a writing program with auto completion, or IDE-like navigation to referenced laws? Is there any version control systems like git specifically made for changing laws?
I am trying to think about how we can make the next evolution in law and politics, and I think that an IDE or suite of tools that can be used to make writing/updating law easier would be an incredible boon.
Just think about all the great tools that have been built because of good code navigation in VSCode or IntelliJ. Are tools like this being built for law?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 5y agoSoftware engineers are a foolhardy bunch (I say this as a developer myself), but the one place every dev knows they're beat is law. If you intend to make a product like this, you're likely going to spend more time foolproofing your liability clause than you will spend writing the code itself.
- lawthrowaway 5y agoAll the lawyers I know use Word with change tracking turned on.
- animal_spirits 5y agoEek!
- smt88 5y agoLawyers and politicians are the worst clients. I say that as someone whose clients are insurance and real estate, mostly. Lawyers are worse and don't pay their invoices. They also loathe automation because it reduces their billable hours.
- metaloha 5y agoI've worked with a few different legal tech firms over the past few years and in my experience the exact opposite is true. Most lawyers (that I've seen) have embraced automation. Lawyers don't want to increase billable hours on bullshit, they want to bill more than 2 or 3 hours per day. If using some customized software or a properly setup Clio+Zapier lets them bill an extra hour or two a day, that's a win. Automation increases billable hours.
- metaloha 5y agoJurisage is sort of on the edge of this with their research software.