This compendium is a series of seven papers (chapters) discussing how information technology (IT), and more specifically artificial intelligence (AI), might be promising and useful in the legal profession, and in the legal reasoning and litigation fields. It is targeted at practicing lawyers, law students, and others who would like to become more current on developments in this arena, especially the promise or potential of AI in the legal profession.

The first chapter is an excellent overview of AI, including its convergence with the law and legal issues. This chapter includes several taxonomies, one describing “technical support for lawyers.” It also clarifies the difference between IT law and IT for the legal profession.

The second, and excellent, theoretical paper discusses case-based reasoning (this term has somewhat different meanings in the AI and legal fields) as it applies to legal reasoning, showing both its promise (perhaps overly optimistically) and some of its limitations. The chapter points out several specific well-chosen examples, and discusses how the vast resources of the Internet may make this area even more promising.

In chapter 3, another theoretical paper, an attempt is made to describe developments in argumentation over time, as information technology has matured. The chapter does point out many of the developments in the maturing area of legal argumentation, and the excellent examples may make this the most valuable chapter for practicing professionals.

Chapter 4 focuses on knowledge discovery from legal databases, including the promising, but time intensive, areas of neural networks, and the even more promising science of data mining. It also effectively cites successes and failures in these two areas. This is an excellent introductory discussion.

Chapter 5 opens with a discussion of issues in legal access. This short chapter introduces some of the potential of legal drafting systems such as the Legal Electronic Document Archive (LEDA) and Solon, among others. The chapter concludes with a view of the state of the art for both legal drafting and legal information retrieval systems.

“Internet, WWW, and Beyond” is the clever title of the sixth chapter. This chapter’s material may be more familiar to the typical reader of the manuscript, but the chapter does provide some useful insights. This section may be less valuable for the practicing lawyer, and more helpful to their supporting technicians and legislators, and their assistants.

Finally, chapter 7 is a very short conclusion, trying to show how some of the theoretical ideas in the earlier sections may or may not be relevant in the typical legal office.

The editors have done a fine job of selecting topics and authors who are knowledgeable, and the papers contain little undue overlap. The editors have also provided adequate cross-referencing in the few places where it is needed.

The material is technically correct and current, and this volume will be useful for any law-involved or interested party. It would make an excellent addition to any law library. The book could also be a useful or supportive text for any course dealing with these topics. The bibliography is also very helpful, and is relevant in this rapidly developing field.