4 ms·

A way to submit any legal document, and for a fee have it returned but explained in plain english. What do you guys think about this? And what do you think are

• lucb1e 13y ago
  I've actually been working on this. Dutch, unfortunately, but here you go: http://lucb1e.com/rp/js/en%20dan%20nu%20in%20het%20Nederlands.htm http://lucb1e.com/rp/js/en%20dan%20nu%20in%20het%20Nederland... Quick translation of the text on the page: Title: And now in plain Dutch Intro paragraph: Contracts are always written in a very cryptic manner. So what do they say in short, plain old Dutch? Status of the project: beta. I've "translated" 2 out of 38 paragraphs from one contract I've received, and that was a lot of work already. Those paragraphs work fine now, but it still needs a lot more work.
  • adam419 13y ago
    Couple questions. Have you had any customers? What type of legal docs do you think are best to target? Are you trying to generate summaries programmatically?
    • lucb1e 13y ago
      > "Have you had any customers?" No, no, it's nothing like that. It's just a small Javascript thingy that tries to convert legal nonsense into sense. I got a contract in Dutch that I found took way longer to read than it should (like, really read and understand all implications), made this script and threw it online. It's in a directory with dozens of unfinished scripts that I wrote. So yes, summaries are generated programmatically. They have no legal value but provide a much better read of what is written in the contract.
      • adam419 13y ago
        How does it translate any legal writing into a simpler form? That sounds like a damn nearly impossible language processing feat.
        • lucb1e 13y ago
          Simple text replacement. I'm sorry if I just shattered the mental picture of some high-tech language processing, but this pretty crude method that just gets the job done :P
• basicallydan 13y ago
  Tenancy agreements and job contracts would probably be common uses. I like this, nice idea!
• aaronem 13y ago
  > A way to submit any legal document, and for a fee have it returned but explained in plain english. SNARK: I understood this to be called a "lawyer". NOT SNARK: Legal language is so recondite, complex, and heavily dependent on external dependencies defined elsewhere, that short of very smart AGI I despair of there ever being a programmatic way to translate between legalese and plain language with any hope of maintaining fidelity -- and, given the import which legal documents tend to have, a bad translation may well be worse than none at all.
• sunir 13y ago
  related, but not quite the same. http://www.Upcounsel.com http://www.Upcounsel.com http://www.rocketlawyer.com/ http://www.rocketlawyer.com/ http://www.legalzoom.com http://www.legalzoom.com
• nwenzel 13y ago
  Not quite what you asked for but Word Rake removes extra text (extra adjectives, phrases, filler words) to get you to something more concise and readable. They have a focus on legal docs. http://www.wordrake.com http://www.wordrake.com
• devinrhode2 13y ago
  I think the legal world needs to create abstractions and simplifications similar to the programming world. There should be standard definitions, that are simply referenced, ideally these standard definitions are available online. For example: "No theft agreement" - employees/tenants/whoever shall not steal, etc etc etc
• danohuiginn 13y ago
  I'd get lawyers to write up explanations of common blocks of legal text. Then you just find them in the contract, and provide an interface to view the explanations alongside the text. For extra money, you can highlight a section of text, and a laywer will tell you what it means. Once a few people have asked about some phrase, you can include it in the general data bank. Make it easy for users to hire a lawyer through you for more extensive work -- that gives you a massive revenue stream, even if only a few people take you up on it.