Legal Research

Slashdot Does Law

By Simon Fodden

There’s an interesting (and long) post on Slashdot that’s essentially a riff by a non-lawyer on vagueness and interpretation in law. What attracted me was the title, which is taken from the opening thought (by another Slashdot contributor): Next Year’s Laws, Now Out in Beta!, the thought being, essentially, that if laws were produced like software, there’d be a trial period where beta testers attempted to break it, confound it or expose ambiguities in it.

I seem to recall that it’s suggested from time to time that the legislature deliberately float draft bills through law schools to let the students hammer on them to find flaws.

At any rate, it’s useful occasionally to listen to a lay person’s proposals for introducing greater certainty into the legal system.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).