Re: [legalxml-econtracts] hierarchical clause model?

[Jason Harrop <jharrop@speedlegal.com>]

My 2 cents is that the hierarchy captures one very important natural 
class of inter-relationship.  As you point out, there are other 
interrelationships as well; some of these are explicit (given by cross 
references in the text); others may be implicit (eg common subject 
matter).

Can these other relationships be captured in meta data or our "Legal 
Markup"?

cheers,

Jason

Dave Marvit wrote:
> 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?
>>>
>>
> 
> 
> 


-- 

Jason Harrop
CTO, SPEEDLEGAL
jharrop@speedlegal.com

Melbourne
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