Some observations on the nature and computer-based representation of legal documents and their link data

Knowledge is recorded and transmitted in the legal domain through well structured documents containing data and meta-data in specific document parts that serve an administrative or procedural purpose. Analysis of this data and its relationships with its containing document parts provides valuable information that can be used by information systems to assist legal practitioners with searching and understanding of legal concepts. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the structures and linkages within legal documents and provides a categorization of the different types of data and explanation of how these types of data interrelate.The paper further demonstrates the identification of data in an example case report document and how the data may be combined to provide information that assists the evaluation of the relevance and importance of legal concepts contained in the document.