Recent years have seen much new research on the interface between artificial intelligence and law, looking at issues such as automated legal reasoning. This collection of papers represents the state of the art in this fascinating and highly topical field.

Proceedings of the conference held Dec. 7-9, 2006, at the Université Pantheon Assas, Paris II, France.

This volume draws attention to many specific challenges of multilingual processing within the European Union, especially after the recent successive enlargement. Most of the languages considered herein are not only â ~less resourcedâ (TM) in terms of processing tools and training data, but also have features which are different from the well known international language pairs. The 16 contributions address specific problems and solutions for languages from south-eastern and central Europe in the context of multilingual communication, translation and information retrieval.

In this book, Georgios N. Yannopoulos appropriately relates the developing field of knowledge based systems in law with the basis in classic philosophy, explicating relations which too often are not properly understood. The decision model developed by the author is important, as it integrates and explains arguments which often have been seen as imcompatible. The use of the theoretical foundation in describing and in giving a critical analysis of the construction of real knowledge bases systems becomes therefore very valuable.’ Jon Bing, Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law ‘Expert systems in law have not been as easily achieved as was originally envisaged, because too many thought the task to be trivial and ignored the complex issues involved. Yannopoulos’ work is valuable because he attempts to detail these issues and overcome them.’ Philip Leith, Queen’s University of Belfast ‘Yannopoulos’ book addresses some of the most crucial problems in the field of information technology and law. The development of more advanced IT solutions for the legal sector will always be closely related to our ability to model and understand the legal reasoning process. In his analysis Yannopoulos elegantly integrates knowledge from many different areas, and in this respect the book reflects an all too seldom seen broadness.’ Pete Wahlgren, The Swedish Law and Informatics Research Institute (IRI) ‘There has been an abundance of recent research on developing intelligent support systems. Dr Yannopoulos’ work is especially significant because it examines the necessary legal background for building such systems. It will be an essential reference for the prospective builders of intelligent legal support systems.’ John Zeleznikow, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia