Work on a computer program called SMILE + IBP (SMart Index Learner Plus Issue-Based Prediction) bridges case-based reasoning
and extracting information from texts. The program addresses a technologically challenging task that is also very relevant
from a legal viewpoint: to extract information from textual descriptions of the facts of decided cases and apply that information
to predict the outcomes of new cases. The program attempts to automatically classify textual descriptions of the facts of
legal problems in terms of Factors, a set of classification concepts that capture stereotypical fact patterns that effect
the strength of a legal claim, here trade secret misappropriation. Using these classifications, the program can evaluate and
explain predictions about a problem’s outcome given a database of previously classified cases. This paper provides an extended
example illustrating both functions, prediction by IBP and text classification by SMILE, and reports empirical evaluations
of each. While IBP’s results are quite strong, and SMILE’s much weaker, SMILE + IBP still has some success predicting and
explaining the outcomes of case scenarios input as texts. It marks the first time to our knowledge that a program can reason
automatically about legal case texts.
Keywords Predicting case outcomes - Classifying case texts - Case-based reasoning