Application of Computer Techniques and Systems in the Study of Law, Intellectual Analysis and Modeling of Legal Activity: A Systematic Review

Integration of computing systems and methods in legal activity allows to extract benefits such as resource saving, increase objectivity, completeness and accuracy of intellectual results. Understanding of the main scientific achievements and trends at the intersection of computer and legal sciences focuses on promising scientific and technological areas of informatization of law. This review systematizes the most important achievements at the intersection of legal and computer sciences, covering foreign and domestic scientific publications for 1949–2020. Researches of computer methods and systems initiated by American jurimetrics were aimed at storing, indexing, abstracting and searching for legal texts and led to the creation of legal information retrieval systems. Domestic legal cybernetics became a pioneer in the field of automation of criminalistics expert examination. Computer modeling of legal reasoning developed on the techniques of artificial intelligence, later it shifted to the field of legal dialogue and conflict of legal arguments, but in recent years it transforms the acquired experience on the basis of modern computer models, patterns and architectures. The popularization of decision-making support systems has provided multi-tasking systems, including information retrieval, legal reasoning, analytics, predictions and control. The latest research segments are focused on the application of machine learning and big data processing. Almost all successful methodological solutions retain their significance, continuing to be applied directly or as the basis for the further development of computational methods and information systems in legal activity.