The document discusses adapting the Parallel Table of Authorities (PTOA) from the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations for use in a digital environment. The PTOA currently exists as specialized legal metadata that links statutes to related regulations but has several obstacles to being processed by software, including ambiguous relationships, lack of granularity, directionality issues, and inconsistent data quality. The document proposes addressing these issues by expressing the PTOA in XML or RDF/OWL to make the relationships explicit and machine-readable in order to enable new uses and applications of the PTOA in the digital domain.

1. Examples of Specialized Legal Metadata to the Digital Environment, From the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Thomas R. Bruce, Legal Information Institute Robert C. Richards, Jr., University of Washington dg.o 2011: 12th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, 14 June 2011, University of Maryland, College Park http://dgo2011.dgsna.org/

2. The Problem: “Islands” Governments create multiple sources of law The sources are interrelated, but exist as isolated “islands” of legal knowledge & information How can one efficiently discover all sources of law related to a particular source of law?

3. The Problem: Example Example: How to find all regulations issued pursuant to US Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. ch.9? Two “Islands”: The statute is in the U.S. Code, while the regulations are in the Code of Federal Regulations

4. One Solution: “Ponts” In the print environment, specialized legal metadata sources were created, to make explicit relationships between different sources of law. We call these sources “ponts,” because they function as “bridges” between “islands” of legal information

6. Public domain ponts—like those created by U.S. federal government, which are free from copyright, 17 U.S.C. § 105—lack usage restrictions & license fees, have great potential in digital domaine.g., PTOA, CONAN, Cong. Rec. History of Bills

7. Example of a Pont: The PTOA Parallel Table of Authorities & Rules (PTOA) Metadata in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Links statutes to regulations they authorize Created by U.S. federal government, public domain, free from use restrictions/license fees

8. PTOA: Excerpt 1 U.S.C. 112.................................................................1 Part 2 112a--112b....................................................22 Part 181 113.................................................................1 Part 2 133..............................................................32 Part 151 2 U.S.C. 136..............................................................36 Parts 701, 702, 703, 705 170..............................................................36 Part 705

9. PTOA in Print: Human-Dependent Most ponts created for print environment require human intervention to ensure connection between the different legal sources they seek to link PTOA in print requires human intervention

10. PTOA: Preparing It for Digital Goals: Disintermediation: Make PTOA processable by software without human intervention Foster interoperability & re-use Create “generative resource” (Zittrain) Foster innovation

11. PTOA: Preparing It for Digital (cont’d) Recommended formats: XML RDF/OWL Why XML & RDF/OWL? Open, international standards Widely used and understood Enable re-use and interoperability Enable “generative” uses Foster innovation: developers are equipped to create new systems to process them

12. PTOA: Use Cases Information Retrieval & Discovery Bidirectional discovery Revelation of implicit relationships Automated retrieval Cross-language retrieval Linked Data Scholarly Research Public Administration eParticipation GIS Machine Learning: Automatic Creation of Ponts

13. PTOA: Obstacles to Preparation for Digital Use Semantics (Ambiguity) Granularity Directionality Data Quality

14. PTOA Obstacles: Semantics 1. Relationships between sources are ambiguous Relationships represented in a PTOA row may be of four possible types: “Is Express Authority For” “Is Implied Authority For” “Is Applied By” “Is Interpreted By”

15. PTOA Obstacles: Semantics (cont’d) 2. Some PTOA rows list multiple sources on one or both sides: 1 U.S.C. 112..................................................................................1 Part 2 112a--112b.................................................................22 Part 181 113..................................................................................1 Part 2 133...............................................................................32 Part 151 2 U.S.C. 136............................................................................. 36 Parts 701, 702, 703, 705 170...............................................................................36 Part 705

16. PTOA Obstacles: Semantics (cont’d) Result: In many PTOA rows, relationships between sources are multiple and complex Result: In most rows, the precise meaning of relationships is implicit & often not discernible by software

17. PTOA Obstacles: Granularity PTOA regulation cites refer only to the “Part” level of CFR But the relationships intended to be represented in PTOA usually occur at more granular levels: “section” or “sub-section”

18. PTOA Obstacles: Granularity: Example “1 U.S.C. […] “112a--112b................................22 Part 181” 1 U.S.C. section 112b (specifically subsection (f)) expressly provides authority for components of 22 C.F.R. part 181 (specifically sections 181.1 through 181.7). 1 U.S.C. section 112a (specifically subsection (d)) implicitly provides authority for components of 22 C.F.R. part 181 (specifically sections 181.8 and 181.9).

19. PTOA Obstacles: Granularity (cont’d) So each PTOA row must be analyzed & divided into multiple rows at accurate level of granularity

20. PTOA Obstacles: Directionality In PTOA, retrieval and discovery can only occur in one direction: from statute to regulation 1 U.S.C. […] 112a--112b................................22 Part 181

21. PTOA Obstacles: Directionality But in digital world, PTOA could add great value if it were bidirectional: if it enabled discovery from regulations to statutes, as well as from statutes to regulations

22. PTOA Obstacle: Data Quality Production of PTOA is decentralized: each individual agency creates rows for its regulations Result: Inconsistent quality of PTOA data Need: For Digital PTOA to express editor’s evaluation of data quality, in machine-processable metadata

23. Digital PTOA: XML Example: Barebones, No Fixes <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <ptoa> <ptoaentry> <!-- Example 1 --> <authority> <uscode> <title>1</title> <sectrange> <start>112a</start> <end>112b</end> </sectrange> </uscode> </authority> <authorized> <cfr> <title>22</title> <part>181</part> </cfr> </authorized> </ptoaentry> </ptoa> </?xml>

24. Digital PTOA: XML: Now with URNs, Granularity, Ranges <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <ptoa> <ptoaentry> <authority type="implicit_authority"> <uscode> <title>1</title> <section urn="urn:lex:us:federal:codified.statute:2010;1.usc.112a@official;house.gov:en$text-html:legal.information.institute">112a</section> <sectionfragment>d</sectionfragment> </uscode> </authority> <authorized> <cfr> <title>22</title> <part urn="urn:lex:us:federal:codified.regulation:2010;22.cfr.181@official;gpo.gov:en$text-xml">181</part> <section urn="urn:lex:us:federal:codified.regulation:2010;22.cfr.181.8@official;gpo.gov:en$text-xml">181.8</section> <section urn="urn:lex:us:federal:codified.regulation:2010;22.cfr.181.9@official;gpo.gov:en$text-xml">181.9</section> </cfr> </authorized> </ptoaentry> </ptoa> </?xml>

25. Digital PTOA: RDFS/OWL: Bidirectionality & Disambiguation <owl:ObjectPropertyrdf:ID="implicitlyAuthorizes"> <owl:inverseOf> <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="isImplicitlyAuthorizedBy"/> </owl:inverseOf> <rdfs:rangerdf:resource="#AuthorizedItem"/> <rdfs:domainrdf:resource="#AuthorizingItem"/> <rdfs:subPropertyOf> <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="isAuthorityRefFor"/> </rdfs:subPropertyOf> </owl:ObjectProperty>

26. Digital PTOA: RDFS/OWL: Granularity <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="hasUSCSectionFragment"> <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#USCodeSection"/> <owl:inverseOf> <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="isUSCSectionFragmentOf"/> </owl:inverseOf> <rdfs:range rdf:resource="#USCodeSectionFragment"/> </owl:ObjectProperty>

27. Challenges to Adapting the PTOA for the Digital Environment Much relevant information is implicit, might not be automatable Need experiments to determine Likely will require labor by humans trained in law Possible approach: partial automation: application recommends options to human coders

28. Challenges to Adapting the PTOA for the Digital Environment (cont’d) Inter-coder reliability needs to be tested & kept at high level Paucity of law-related Linked Data resources, http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/linked-data-and-law/

29. Related Research Earlier studies of print-based ponts introduced into digital environment: Al-Kofahi et al. (2001); Dabney (1986); McDermott (1986) Findings: a. New uses of ponts arose in digital environment b. Ponts positively influenced retrieval performance

30. Similar Projects Legislation.gov.uk (Legislative Information Retrieval): Table of Legislative Effects, CEN MetaLex (legislative status) AGILE (Public Administration System): CEN MetaLex & OWL, http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-582/paper4.pdf

31. Other Ponts to Examine Already Known: Congressional Record: “History of Bills & Resolutions,” http://tinyurl.com/432awbw CFR List of Subjects & Subject Index, http://tinyurl.com/3udaqa2 United States Code Subject Index Constitution of the United States Annotated (CONAN), http://tinyurl.com/3w5xm6q

32. Other Ponts to Examine (cont’d) To Be Discovered: Legal information professionals might examine legal research bibliographies & legal research systems to identify additional public domain ponts Especially state & local jurisdictions, or respecting particular areas of law

33. Digital PTOA: Next Steps Spring 2011: Receive input from colleagues at conferences Summer & Fall 2011: Build prototype

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41. Contacts Tom Bruce, Legal Information Institute, trb2 [at] cornell.edu Robert Richards, University of Washington, robertrichards03 [at] gmail.com