Developing a computer tool to train law students to solve cases in administrative law

A common approach in teaching law is to make use of invented cases which have to be solved by students. This is seen as a method of learning the basic legal concepts in a certain field. The problem with this way of teaching is that teachers do not instruct students in how to solve cases in general nor how to solve cases in a specific area. There also is not enough time in the regular curriculum to learn to master this skill of solving cases. The lack of an explicit method has resulted in research to develop a method of solving cases and implement it in an intelligent teaching system (ITS). Students are instructed in the use of the system and have to solve cases using the explicit method. The program will not give instruction. The program has the function of a coach who watches the student solving cases and will interfere when necessary. The domain is administrative law, more specific the AROB procedure (a procedure in which civilians can make a complaint against a decision of a governmental authority). In this article some issues involved in the building of such a system for legal education will be discussed. The use of cases in legal education Burgomaster and aldermen of Maastricht have decided by decree of 30 July 1981, to grant permission to the Bowl corporation in Maastri&t, under clause 56 of the Housing Act, to use the house at Looiersgracht number 12 as an office. This is under the condition that the corporation makes suitable for residence (for one and two person households) the office at Looiersgracht number 8 which is in ownership of the Bowl corporation. The Provincial Corporation for Mental Health in Limburg which gas an office at Looiersgracht number 8 is very much opposed to the decision of the Burgomaster and aldermen. What actions can they take and at which moment? Legal problem solving is a common method used in Dutch legal education. The function of such a specific legal problem is to learn to apply legal concepts, doctrine and statutes (and specific clauses within them). The legal cases are used as a particular problem situation for which a student has to find a juridically sound solution. The problem is however that although cases have a central place in legal education (and examination) a lot of teachers do not teach students the meaning of cases nor do they teach how to solve a case. Some research has taken place in the Netherlands on legal case solving (Crombag, 1972, Crombag, 1977; Abas, 1985; Abas and Broekers-Knol, 1985). The idea behind that research is to develop an instructional method to teach students how to solve legal cases. This literature and my own experiences in legal education as a law student have led to the idea that legal education is in need of a way to teach students explicitly how to solve a case. Next to that 9th BILETA Conference Building Systems 1st & 2nd April 1993 John Moores University Liverpool Page 1 of 5 Muntjewerff 03/04/2005 http://www.bileta.ac.uk/93papers/muntjew.html students need to spend some time to get skilled in solving legal cases. Because there is no time in the formal curriculum to spend on training students in this skill a computer tool could be a way out. Because cases are solved within a specific legal domain a choice had to be made. The domain chosen is administrative law, more specifically the AROB procedure (a procedure in which civilians can file a complaint against a decision of a governmental authority). This procedure is a very important procedure in legal practice. Within the study of administrative law a lot of attention is given to the AROB-procedure because of the complexity of the subjed matter and its social significance. Student results are moderate. Another important aspect of choosing this domain is that the administrative law staff is willing to cooperate. Towards a tool for training legal case solving If you plan to develop a training tool that is able to assist students to solve cases in administrative law, what kind of decisions are there to be made? A choice is made to develop a coaching system instead of developing a Computer Assisted Instruction program (CAI). The standard control structure of CAl is branching, the answer of a student refers directly to a certain screen. This makes CAI programs less flexible in their interaction with students than Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). The structure of an ITS makes it possible to see to a more flexible interaction with the student. An ITS is a knowledge based system for education. An ITS is developed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques (Sleeman, 1982). Almost all ITS's are coaching systems. Coaching systems support the training of tasks. A coaching system will not give instruction. It watches the student perform a task and will interfere when necessary. Besides the considerations mentioned earlier there are also some demands for the domain and the task if you want to develop a coaching system in a certain area. Some of these considerations are: is the domain well structured and documented? Is the knowledge in the domain supported by a theory? Are there explicit methods used in the domain? Are there not too many different concepts used in the domain? What kind of task is it? Is it a difficult and often performed task (Steels, 1992)? In developing the training tool the following plan of action is followed. A lot of consideration is given to the Analysis phase (Newell, 1982; Breuker, 1987; Steels, 1992)