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Computational law (or legal computing) is a branch of law concerned with the study of formal representations and automated reasoning with laws (governmental regulations, business rules, and contracts) in electronically mediated domains.〔http://complaw.stanford.edu/〕 Like other disciplines in computational science, computational law is concerned with quantitative modeling and analysis techniques, e.g., by using computers to analyze and model legal issues. Many of the techniques used in computational law are taken or derived from techniques in the domains of natural language processing and big data analysis. Analysis techniques also include legal visualization techniques. == History == Speculation about potential benefits to legal practice through applying methods from computational science and AI research to automate parts of the law date back at least to the middle 1940s.〔18 Rocky Mntn. L. Rev. 378 (1945-1946) Does the Law Need a Technological Revolution; Kelso, Louis O.〕 Further, AI and law and computational law do not seem easily separable, as perhaps most of AI research focusing on the law and its automation appears to utilize computational methods. The forms that speculation took are multiple and not all related in ways to readily show closeness to one another. This history will sketch them as they were, attempting to show relationships where they can be found to have existed. By 1949, a minor academic field aiming to incorporate electronic and computational methods to legal problems had been founded by American legal scholars, called jurimetrics.〔33 Minn. L. Rev. 455 (1948-1949) Jurimetrics--The Next Step Forward; Loevinger, Lee〕 Though broadly said to be concerned with the application of the "methods of science" to the law, these methods were actually of a quite specifically defined scope. Jurimetrics was to be "concerned with such matters as the quantitative analysis of judicial behavior, the application of communication and information theory to legal expression, the use of mathematical logic in law, the retrieval of legal data by electronic and mechanical means, and the formulation of a calculus of legal predictability."〔Loevinger, Lee. "Jurimetrics: The methodology of legal inquiry." ''Law and Contemporary Problems'' (1963): 5-35. At 8.〕 These interests led in 1959 to the founding a journal, ''Modern Uses of Logic in Law'', as a forum wherein articles would be published about the applications of techniques such as mathematical logic, engineering, statistics, etc. to the legal study and development.〔"About Jurimetrics." ''About the Journal''. American Bar Association Section of Science & Technology Law and the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Independently in 1958, at the Conference for the Mechanization of Thought held at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Middlesex, UK, the French jurist Lucien Mehl presented a paper both on the benefits of using computational methods for law and on the potential means to use such methods to automate law for a discussion that included AI luminaries like Marvin Minsky.〔''Mechanization of Thought Processes: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the National Physical Laboratory on 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th November 1958''. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1959. Print.〕〔Niblett, Bryan. ''Computer Science and the Law: Inaugural Lecture of the Professor of Computer Science Delivered at the College on January 25, 1977''. Swansea, Wales: U College of Swansea, 1977. 7-8. Print.〕 Mehl believed that the law could by automated by two basic distinct, though not wholly separable, types of machine. These were the "documentary or information machine", which would provide the legal researcher quick access to relevant case precedents and legal scholarship,〔"Automation in the Legal World." ''Mechanization of Thought Processes: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the National Physical Laboratory on 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th November 1958''. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1959. 755-87. Print. At 759.〕 and the "consultation machine", which would be "capable of answering any question put to it over a vast field of law."〔"Automation in the Legal World." ''Mechanization of Thought Processes: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the National Physical Laboratory on 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th November 1958''. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1959. 755-87. Print. At 768-769.〕 The latter type of machine would be able to basically do much of a lawyer's job by simply giving the "exact answer to a () problem put to it."〔''Ibid. ''768.〕 By 1970, Mehl's first type of machine, one that would be able to retrieve information, had been accomplished but there seems to have been little consideration of further fruitful intersections between AI and legal research.〔Some Speculation about Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning Bruce G. Buchanan and Thomas E. Headrick, ''Stanford Law Review'', Vol. 23, No. 1 (Nov., 1970), pp. 40-62. At p. 40. 〕 There were, however, still hopes that computers could model the lawyer's thought processes through computational methods and then apply that capacity to solve legal problems, thus automating and improving legal services via increased efficiency as well as shedding light on the nature of legal reasoning.〔Some Speculation about Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning Bruce G. Buchanan and Thomas E. Headrick ''Stanford Law Review'',Vol. 23, No. 1 (Nov., 1970), pp. 40-62. At p. 51-60. 〕 By the late 1970s, computer science and the affordability of computer technology had progressed enough that the retrieval of "legal data by electronic and mechanical means" had been achieved by machines fitting Mehl's first type and were in common use in American law firms.〔Legal Decisions and Information Systems. Jon Bing and Trygve Harvold. Oslo, Norway: Universitets Forlaget; 1977〕〔Niblett, Bryan. ''Computer Science and Law''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980. 7-8. Print.〕 During this time, research focused on improving the goals of the early 1970s occurred, with programs like ''Taxman'' being worked on in order to both bring useful computer technology into the law as practical aids and to help specify the exact nature of legal concepts.〔See, e.g., L. Thorne McCarty, ''Reflections on Taxman: An Experiment in Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning, ''90 Harv. L. Rev. 837-895 (1977).〕 Nonetheless, progress on the second type of machine, one that would more fully automate the law, remained relatively inert.〔''Supra'', Niblett, p. 7-8.〕 Research into machines that could answer questions in the way that Mehl's consultation machine would picked up somewhat in the late 1970s and 1980s. A 1979 convention in Swansea, Wales marked the first international effort solely to focus upon applying Artificial Intelligence research to legal problems in order to "consider how computers can be used to discover and apply the legal norms embedded within the written sources of the law."〔B. Niblett, editor. Computer Science and Law: An Advanced Course. Cambridge University Press, 1980. This volume is a record of the proceedings of a workshop held at University College of Swansea, Wales, September 17–27, 1979.〕〔McCarty, L. Thorne. "Artificial Intelligence and Law: How to get there from here." ''Ratio Juris'' 3.2 (1990): 189-200. At 189.〕 That said, little substantial progress seems to have been made in the following decade of the 1980s.〔Though this is contestable. For an argument supporting, see McCarty, L. Thorne. "Artificial Intelligence and Law: How to get there from here." ''Ratio Juris'' 3.2 (1990): 189-200.〕 In a 1988 review of Anne Gardner's book ''An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Legal Reasoning ''(1987), the Harvard academic legal scholar and computer scientist Edwina Rissland wrote that "She plays, in part, the role of pioneer; artificial intelligence ("AI") techniques have not yet been widely applied to perform legal tasks. Therefore Gardner, and this review, first describe and define the field, then demonstrate a working model in the domain of contract offer and acceptance."〔Rissland, Edwina. "Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning: A Discussion of the Field and Gardner's Book." ''AI Magazine'' 9.3 (1988): 45.〕 Eight years after the Swansea conference had passed, and still AI and law researchers merely trying to delineate the field could be described by their own kind as "pioneer()." In the 1990s and early 2000s more progress occurred. Computational research generated insights for law.〔See, e.g., Kades, Eric, "The Laws of Complexity & the Complexity of Laws: The Implications of Computational Complexity Theory for the Law" 49 Rutgers Law Review 403-484 (1997)〕 The First International Conference on AI and the Law occurred it 1987, but it is in the 1990s and 2000s that the biannual conference began to build up steam and to delve more deeply into the issues involved with work intersecting computational methods, AI, and law.〔See "International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL)."''International Conference on AI and Law (ICAIL)''. The DBLP Computer Science Bibliography, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. :"Over the last 5 years, in the fallout of the Great Recession, the legal profession has entered the era of the New Normal. Notably, a series of forces related to technological change, globalization, and the pressure to do more with less (in both corporate America and law firms) has changed permanently the legal services industry. As one article put it, firms are cutting back on hiring "in order to increase efficiency, improve profit margins, and reduce client costs." Indeed, in its recently noted cutbacks, Weil Gotshal's leaders remarked that it had initially expected old work to return, but came "around to the view that this is the ‘new normal.’"The New Normal provides lawyers with an opportunity to rethink—and reimagine—the role of lawyers in our economy and society. To the extent that law firms enjoyed, or still enjoy, the ability to bundle work together, that era is coming to an end, as clients unbundle legal services and tasks. Moreover, in other cases, automation and technology can change the roles of lawyers, both requiring them to oversee processes and use technology more aggressively as well as doing less of the work that is increasingly managed by computers (think: electronic discovery). The upside is not only greater efficiencies for society, but new possibilities for legal craftsmanship. The emerging craft of lawyering in the New Normal is likely to require lawyers to be both entrepreneurial and fluent with a range of competencies that will enable them to add value for clients. Apropos of the trends noted above, there are emerging opportunities for "legal entrepreneurs" in a range of roles from legal process management to developing technologies to manage legal operations (such as overseeing automated processes) to supporting online dispute resolution processes. In other cases, effective legal training as well as domain specific knowledge (finance, sales, IT, entrepreneurship, human resources, etc.) can form a powerful combination that prepares law school grads for a range of opportunities (business development roles, financial operations roles, HR roles, etc.). In both cases, traditional legal skills alone will not be enough to prepare law students for these roles. But the proper training, which builds on the traditional law school curriculum and goes well beyond it including practical skills, relevant domain knowledge (e.g., accounting), and professional skills (e.g., working in teams), will provide law school students a huge advantage over those with a one-dimensional skill set."''〔"The Future of Law School Innovation (Conference @ColoradoLaw)."Computational Legal Studies''. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. Many see perks to oncoming changes brought about by the computational automation of law. For one thing, legal experts have predicted that it will aid legal self-help, especially in the areas of contract formation, enterprise planning, and the prediction of rule changes.〔''Ibid.''〕 For another thing, those with knowledge about computers see the potential for computational law to really fully bloom as eminent. In this vein, it seems that machines like Mehl's second type may come into existence. Stephen Wolfram has said that: :"So we’re slowly moving toward people being educated in the kind of computational paradigm. Which is good, because the way I see it, computation is going to become central to almost every field. Let's talk about two examples—classic professions: law and medicine. It's funny, when Leibniz was first thinking about computation at the end of the 1600s, the thing he wanted to do was to build a machine that would effectively answer legal questions. It was too early then. But now we’re almost ready, I think, for computational law. Where for example contracts become computational. They explicitly become algorithms that decide what's possible and what's not.You know, some pieces of this have already happened. Like with financial derivatives, like options and futures. In the past these used to just be natural language contracts. But then they got codified and parametrized. So they’re really just algorithms, which of course one can do meta-computations on, which is what has launched a thousand hedge funds, and so on. Well, eventually one's going to be able to make computational all sorts of legal things, from mortgages to tax codes to perhaps even patents. Now to actually achieve that, one has to have ways to represent many aspects of the real world, in all its messiness. Which is what the whole knowledge-based computing of Wolfram|Alpha is about."〔Wolfram, Stephen. "Talking about the Computational Future at SXSW 2013—Stephen Wolfram Blog." ''Stephen Wolfram Blog RSS''. N.p., 19 Mar. 2013. 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