FROM RESEARCH TO PRACTICE: DECISIONEXPRESS PRESENTS AUTOMATIC SUMMARIES OF COURT DECISIONS

Significant advances made in information processing technologies in the last few decades have led to the production of relatively large quantities of data. Due to the efficiency with which this data can be processed using information technologies, people often expect that this data be used efficiently by professionals from many fields. One field in which information is produced in large quantities and needs to be adequately classified and reliably accessible is the legal field. Indeed, legal experts perform relatively difficult legal clerical work that requires accuracy and speed. These legal experts often summarize legal documents, such as court judgments, and look for information relevant to specific cases in these summaries. These tasks involve understanding, interpreting, explaining and researching a wide variety of legal documents. The summary of a judgment is a compressed but accurate statement of the judgment's contents. Summaries help to organize a large volume of documents so that finding relevant judgments for a specific case is easy and efficient.