Re: [legalxml-econtracts] hierarchical clause model?

[Dave Marvit <dave@marvit.org>]

Folks,

Just a quick question from a non-lawyer...

When people talk about representing contracts hierarchically, is that 
an adequate method to express the dependancies between 'blocks'? It 
sees to me that the relationships would be much more complex than the 
simple parent / child / sibling relationships implied by hierarchy.

Dave Marvit
Fujitsu labs America
dave@marvit.org

On Monday, April 7, 2003, at 11:30  AM, Rolly Chambers wrote:

> Jason -
>
> I continue to favor the "Hierarchically Named Blocks" approach, but 
> within
> that approach I can live with any reasonable naming conventions. Based 
> on
> your research, it might be prudent to consider an approach that 
> accommodates
> the differences between US and UK/AU terminology for contract 
> "structures,"
> perhaps something like:  Article / Clause or Section / Paragraph.
>
> As far as lower levels below "Paragraph" are concerned, I'd favor
> "Subparagraphs." This is just a preference, however.
>
> Rolly Chambers
>
>> Summary of Discussion points
>> ----------------------------
>>
>> 1. There appears to be support in U.S.A. for "Hierarchically Named
>> Blocks" which start Article, Section, Paragraph.  (I believe this
>> hierarchy was suggested by Rolly in July or August 2000.  Rolly's
>> hierarchy continued with Subparagraphs and Clauses)
>>
>> 2. Elsewhere than the U.S.A (I looked at UK and Australia) there is
>> little support for 'article'. In Australia, we tend to use 'clause' to
>> refer to the blocks irrespective of their level in the hierarchy, but
>> will also occasionally use a top level of 'Part'.
>>
>> 3. So assuming Article/Section/Paragraph is acceptable to US lawyers,
>> the question is whether other jurisdictions could live with it as 
>> well?
>>
>> 4. If we did run with Article/Section/Paragraph, what would we call 
>> the
>> lower levels, and how many lower levels would be necessary?
>>
>