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Advisory Systems for Pro Se Petitioners

Advisory Systems for Pro Se Petitioners. Karl Branting Department of Computer Science University of Wyoming,USA. Outline. The Challenge of pro se petitioners What pro se petitioners need to know How Computers can assist pro se petitioners Cause study: POA development features

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Advisory Systems for Pro Se Petitioners

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  1. Advisory Systems for Pro Se Petitioners Karl Branting Department of Computer Science University of Wyoming,USA

  2. Outline • The Challenge of pro se petitioners • What pro se petitioners need to know • How Computers can assist pro se petitioners • Cause study: POA • development • features • status

  3. The Challenge of Pro Se Petitioners • In US, and many other countries, citizens can represent themselves in most forums • Public attorneys are not available for many legal claims • Pro Se petitioners: • Often have little understanding of judicial procedures • Consume a disproportionate amount of judicial resources

  4. What Pro Se Petitioners Need to Know 1. The kinds of available relief 2. Whether they qualify for relief 3. The procedure for seeking relief a. Documents b. Procedure

  5. The Protection Order Advisor • Funded by the Idaho Supreme Court • Intended as a demonstration project for judicial applications of artificial intelligence • Protection orders selected at the request of court administrators • Programming performed as a Masters project by Susan Hanna (an attorney)

  6. Pragmatics of POA • Protection-order applicants often: • in distress or danger • without adequate resources • Court personnel not permitted to give legal advise • Advisory system desired to relieve stress of court staff

  7. Assistance Provided by POA • Describe what relief the courts can provide for domestic violence • Determine whether applicant qualifies for relief • Draft key documents • Instruct applicant on filing procedure

  8. Design Issues • Potentially unsophisticated users • False negatives worse than false positives • Privacy/security of case data • Neutrality vs. advocacy

  9. Automating Advise 1. The kinds of available relief: Hypertext 2. Whether they qualify for relief: Rule-based expert system 3. The procedure for seeking relief a. Documents: Automated document drafting b. Procedure: Hypertext

  10. Implementation • Prolog rule engine. Subgoals include • Predicates • Document data fields • Screens • Delphi interface • Type-checking • Hyperlinks

  11. Development Cycle • Informal specifications proposed by family-law judges • Prototype implements • Revisions after feedback from: • Judicial administrators • Domestic violence advocates • Family law judges • Repeat until convergence

  12. Status • POA used in • 2 Idaho District Courts • Idaho domestic abuse advocacy office • Future work • Multi-lingual • Speech output • Reimplementation in Docuplanner 2

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