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Towards Distributed Legal Information Systems: A Discussion of Ontology Mismatches

The information required for solving legal problems cannot be assumed to be contained in one information system anymore. Solving legal problems nowadays requires the integration of information from multiple information systems. In this article we address the development of distributed legal information systems. We focus on the problems arising from differences in domain ontologies in the participating systems. Also, we classify ontology mismatches and study how hard it is to overcome each of the ontology mismatches. 1. The Legacy Problem Prior to decision making legal practitioners often spend a considerable amount of their time gathering information. The information that is required might be held by different organisations residing at different locations. Deciding on eligibility for social security benefits, for instance, may involveorganisations such as the Department ofSocial Security, theInlandRevenue, andtheVehicleRegistrationauthority. Apart from being at different physical locations these organisations have their own culture regarding the information systems in use. In general these systems are developed by different people, on different platforms using different software tools andwithdifferent aims andviews ontheirdomain. Thedifferences in softwarethat result from this diversity make it particularly hard to integrate a set of existing information systems. This problem is known as the legacy problem. If we are to support legal practitioners in their task of gathering and integrating information then we have to come to terms with this problem. In this article we address the legacy problem in the context of the development of distributed legal information systems. We focus on the differences in assumptions concerning the conceptualisation of the domain knowledge by studying the ontology mismatches between different heterogenous systems. The remainder of this article is structured as follows. In section 2 we present an example motivating the need for distributed legal information systems. In section 3 we analyse the mismatches that can occurbetweenthe ontologies of twodifferent systems by presenting a classification of ontology mismatches. Then, in section 4 we briefly discuss the difficulty of dealing with each of the ontology mismatches. In section5 weoutline KRAFT , a distributedarchitecturethat deals withheterogeneity in ontologies and showhowit can be appliedtothe legal domain. Finally, in section 6 we draw conclusions.