I hope those working on this type of material consider Akoma Ntoso (http://www.akomantoso.org/ http://www.akomantoso.org/), currently being standardized as OASI

I hope those working on this type of material consider Akoma Ntoso (http://www.akomantoso.org/ http://www.akomantoso.org/), currently being standardized as OASIS LegalDocML (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legaldocml http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legaldocml), and maybe OASIS LegalXML (https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legalxml-courtfiling https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legalxml-courtfiling). I think Akoma Ntoso would make bulk access, maybe even piecemeal API access as with other similar works like this, easier for consumption (think NLTK). The Italian Senate (the Senate in Rome) uses it, the Library of Congress has introduced some "data challenges" using it as well, and I think it is the future. Using a common data format / XML schema has its advantages.