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2019 CL+B Fest Node Resources

Here are a few open-source computational law and smart legal contracting resources you can use for learning about computational law and prototyping during the CL+B Fest in your node. You may use these resources either for your LEARN track educational sessions or for HACK track prototyping challenges. We strongly encourage nodes to share these resources with their attendees so they can get familiar well in advance of the festival.

Are we missing any free and open resources that you think should be included below? If so, please  help us out and submit them via this form. Thank you!

Computational Law & Blockchain Overviews:
Writings:
  • Wikipedia, Legal Informatics (link)
  • Wikipedia, Computational Law (link)
  • Legalese, (At Least) 70 Years of Legal Informatics (bibliography) (link)
  • Trevor Bench-Cohen et al., A history of AI and Law in 50 papers: 25 years of the international conference on AI and Law (2012) (link)
  • Michael Genesereth, Computational Law: The Cop in the Backseat (2015) (link)
  • Harry Surden, Computable Contracts (2012) (link)
  • Nick Szabo, Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets (1996) (link)
  • Nadia Webster, NZ Better Rules Hack (2018) (link)
Videos:
  • Pia Andrews, Tipping Points, Governments and GLAMs (2017) (link)
  • Vitalik Buterin, Decentralizing Everything (link)
  • Primavera de Filippi, Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet (2014) (link)
  • Dazza Greenwood, What is Computational Law? (2018) (link)
  • Madrid Legal Hackers, Smartcontracts y Blockchain con Legal Hackers (link) (Spanish)
  • Mark S. Miller, Computer Security as the Future of Law (1997) (link)
  • Jason Morris, How programming can make the law more accessible (2018) (link)
  • Harry Surden, Computable Contracts (2014) (link)
  • Meng Weng Wong, Smart Legal Contracts and Legal Smart Contracts (a history of digital contracts) (2018) (link)
Blockchain-Integrated Computational Law Tools:

OpenLaw

  • Site: https://openlaw.io/
  • Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYjbAbImVpY; OpenLaw tutorial
  • Docs: https://docs.openlaw.io/; API and open source libraries
  • Description: OpenLaw is a blockchain-based protocol for the creation and execution of legal agreements. Using OpenLaw, lawyers can more efficiently engage in transactional work and digitally sign and store legal agreements in a highly secure manner, all while leveraging next generation blockchain-based smart contracts. Using OpenLaw, you can create “legal templates” which can be enhanced using our “Legal Markup” language. Our Legal Markup language is akin to Wikipedia’s “wiki text” with greater functionality and enables anyone to wrap logic and other contextual information around traditional legal prose.

Accord Project Smart Legal Contract Template Studio

  • Site: https://studio.accordproject.org
  • Demo: https://vimeo.com/299949706
  • MIT Media Lab Explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOF3pSZIiQ8
  • Docs: https://docs.accordproject.org/,  https://accord.gitbook.io/accord-project/
  • Description: The Accord Project is an open source, non-profit, initative working to transform contract management and contract automation by digitizing contracts. The Accord Project provides an open, industry-driven, specification and implementation for smart legal contracts that includes the leading law firms and blockchain technology organizations in the world. The Project has created the following Open Source software packages: Cicero, Ergo, Model Repository, Template Library, and Template Studio. All these software packages are under active development and we encourage companies and individuals to contribute requirements, documentation, issues and code.

Agreements Network

RChain Smart Contracts

Non-Blockchain-Integrated Computational Law Tools:

docassemble

ERGO Lite (Open Source version of ErgoAI)

  • Site: http://flora.sourceforge.net/
  • Docs: http://flora.sourceforge.net/documentation.html
  • Description: ERGO Lite (formerly Flora-2) is a sophisticated object-based knowledge representation and reasoning system.
    ERGO Lite is an open source subset of its commercial cousin called ERGO Reasoner, which contains many important extensions and enhancements to Flora-2, and is proprietary to Coherent Knowledge Systems. Flora-2 is implemented as a set of run-time libraries and a compiler that translates a unified language of F-logic, HiLog, Transaction
    Logic, and defeasible reasoning into tabled Prolog code

QnA Markup

  • Site: https://www.qnamarkup.org/
  • Demo: https://youtu.be/RVhzQ1JVi3s
  • Docs: https://www.qnamarkup.org/syntax/
  • Description: QnA Markup (http://www.qnamarkup.org) is a simple computer language written for lawyers with little or no programming experience. It transforms blocks of text into interactive question and answer sessions (QnAs). These QnAs can be used as stand-alone expert systems or in the aid of rule-based document construction. Plus, they can be fun, and the entire project is open source. Among other things, that means free.

OpenFisca

  • Site: https://openfisca.org/
  • Docs: https://openfisca.org/doc/
  • Description: OpenFisca transforms legislation into code. OpenFisca allows you to (1) calculate many variables of the tax and benefit system of a country given input variables; (2) simulate the budgetary consequences of a reform and its distributional impact when plugged on a survey. Its engine is independent of the country, it is therefore possible to simulate any country. It behaves as microsimulation software with improved ties to legislation. For a deep dive into the context and difficulties that are encountered when modelling legislation as code that OpenFisca aims at solving, read the Better Rules for Government report. OpenFisca is free software published under the GNU Affero General Public Licence version 3 or later. It is written in the Python programming language (compatible with version 3.7).

Stanford Worksheets

  • Site: http://worksheets.stanford.edu/homepage/index.php
  • Docs: http://worksheets.stanford.edu/homepage/about.php
  • Description: Worksheets are active forms. They enable users to view and modify small to medium-sized amounts of structured data. Data is presented on such forms in a manner most suited to the type of data involved – as charts, graphs, tables, type-in fields, checkboxes, and so forth. Changes to the data are checked for completeness and consistency with static and dynamic constraints. Consequences of changes are automatically computed and the data is modified to reflect these consequences. Examples of worksheets in use today include online tax forms, self-validating expense reports, product configuration worksheets, interactive educational exercises, interactive program planners, process simulations, puzzles, games, and so forth. Some of these are implemented as mobile or laptop applications; others take the form of web-based applications (i.e. web apps).
HACK Track Use Cases:

If you are hosting a HACK track, consider challenging your node participants to develop working prototypes of any of the following use cases:

  • Service Level Agreement
  • Corporate Voting
  • IP License/Transfer
  • Wills
  • Family Trust Fund
  • Privacy Notice & Consent
  • Attorney Engagement Letter
  • Shipping Contract of Affreightment
DISCUSS Track Prompts:

Here is a set of general questions that each node may adopt/adapt to drive DISCUSS track sessions. We encourage nodes to memorialize their discussions in both video and through reports that can be shared online. (h/t Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law & Policy and law.MIT.edu for their suggested questions)

  1. How can we recenter and reframe the narrative of the blockchain space’s potential, away from fixations with cryptocurrency prices and regulatory pushback?
  2. How might the co-op model further blockchain governance?
  3. Civil society is a critical actor in polycentric governance models.  How can we make blockchain governance systems more accessible for civil society actors?
  4. What can we learn from polycentric governance models that pre-date (or emerged concurrently with) the concept of blockchain governance (e.g., UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights)?
  5. How can the blockchain legal space assist in the development of blockchain for social impact?
  6. How can regulatory sandboxes be used to test and advance the blockchain regulatory space?
  7. How does risk-based regulation work for technologies that changes risk profiles?
  8. Where in the emerging blockchain application stack does it help to have technology-neutral regulations?
  9. Is there a legal entity type for a DAO that wouldn’t take away that DAO’s fundamental properties?

Brought to you by:

In collaboration with: OpenLaw, the Accord Project, Monax, Legal.io, MIT Media Lab (law.mit.edu), Stanford CodeX Blockchain Group, Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic, and more…

Questions? Email us: clbfest2019 at gmail.