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Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

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Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#21

Post by dogweather »

defrost wrote: post #18
dogweather wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Interesting info. For sure, I agree that vocabulary is important, and specialized words are extremely valuable. On the other hand, I'm intrigued by professionally written dictionaries that use a simplified English of a few thousand words in the definitions. Then, of course, sentence length and structure also come into play. BTW, the Dale-Chall formula uses two factors to score readability: (1) Average sentenc…

Conversationally, in a beer over a barbie kind of way, no offence intended, Dale-Chell lost me at "words that 80% of fourth-graders in American schools knew in 1948 (revised 1984)". A cookie in 1984 is not the cookie of the 2020s web savvy teenager. This particular article from the UK shares many of my own feelings about automated readability indexes: https://www.effortmark.co.uk/readability-formulas-seven-reas... I…

> beer over a barbie

I immediately pictured rude things being done to a Barbie Doll. Which is probably your point.

Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#24

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Interesting. I went to look for England&Wales entries and the first local (to UK) entry was from Ireland: https://www.public.law/dictionary/entries/emergency-care-ord....

It talks about "Tusla", which term was entirely opaque to me. Apparently it's a neonym for a child welfare agency. An otherwise very readable sentence became entirely opaque due to use of a proper noun.

The "ex parte" entry appears to say that it's a two party proceeding, in USA, is that true? In UK it's one-party before the court/tribunal. Multi-party proceedings where a party fails to respond are not ex parte in UK law (AFAIK) but are still inter partes.

Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#25

Post by pseingatl »

dogweather wrote: post #14
moontear wrote: post #10

Impressive and really readable. I feel this would benefit from a slightly different name such as International Common Law Dictionary or something similar instead of the general term used now. I believe that many concepts found in common law just don’t translate to other law systems (let’s say Sweden, Spain, Germany) and a translation of the words (which would help in terms of understanding) actually doesn’t do the co…

> a slightly different name such as International Common Law Dictionary That's a good idea. The generic name I'm using doesn't really describe it well. And yes — it'll be really interesting to see what happens when I try to add Civil Law info. I mean, do they even explain the law over there? It's a whole other country. I kid, I kid. These will also be non-English, so that's another dimension of complexity. Your thoug…

Try Louisiana. Civil law, in English.

Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#26

Post by dotancohen »

defrost wrote: post #3

I'm not sure how mixing legal terms from differing domains will pan out for your intended target audience, here in the Commonwealth hegemony we have issue with self representation in Court from those educated via central north american police and law shows .. quoting their US Constitutional Rights as a Free Citizen, etc. That said, you might like, say, the New South Wales (Australian) guide to legal terms and self he…

  > issue with self representation in Court from those educated via
  > central north american police and law shows
Interestingly, as one who does not watch television, I had defense attorney try to explain to me a concept as "like on television shows". This was a professional with a law degree, to whom I was paying a not-insignificant sum of my earnings, trying to describe some concept with pop-culture analogies assuming that everyone in the world would be familiar with American television. And we're not in the US, don't have the same legal system as the US, and don't even use the same language as the US.

Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#28

Post by _ggwa »

AlbertCory wrote: post #6

A somewhat similar project that I started at Google (this was US-only) was: Common constructions of computer terms ("database", "processor", "thread", etc.) These words appear in patent claims, and the claims are what determine infringement (I use the word "construction" instead of "definition" deliberately). You might well think there's a standard dictionary of them. There is not, at least as of 5-6 years ago. The p…

There are some patent dictionaries based on how US courts defined terms. For example (over a decade old): http://www.pubpat.org/garrod-glossaries.htm

The USPTO also had a glossary pilot program at some point, but it ended and I guess was not considered useful: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/initiatives/glossary-initiativ...

I think patent attorneys and agents could avoid most of this problem if they wrote better. I'm a patent examiner (and this post only represents my own opinion, not that of the USPTO or US govt.), but it seems to me that patent applications are typically written quickly. Clearly defining terms is an afterthought, particularly given that many attorneys and agents see value in being vague.

Yes, maybe their explicit definition could cause them trouble later, but I think the lack of an explicit definition is more likely to cause trouble. I have examined applications with useful explicit definitions, or a reference to a preferred dictionary. I also examined one application where the applicant redefined a term contrary to its normal meaning in the middle of the specification, and that redefinition was critical to understanding the claims. I personally think all special definitions should go in an easy-to-find section.

Edit: I'll also use this opportunity to make a shameless plug for my patent claim analyzer, which will identify a lot of ambiguous language in patent claims.

Re: Show HN: International Legal Dictionary

#30

Post by dogweather »

jwilk wrote: post #23
egorfine wrote: post #22

Well, my very first search yielded me: Page not found We're sorry, but we could not find the page you requested: www.public.law/search?term=perjury

https://www.public.law/dictionary/entries/perjury Looks like the search function is broken.

Thanks - Not implemented yet. I put the form on the page before implementing the backend for it.
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