[Superstars} Law IDE

Law referencing has never been easier! Inspired by the IDE, we aim to bring a new level of convenience for lawyers by transforming Microsoft Word into an intelligent environment to reference laws.

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Inspiration

Team Superstars presents our solution - Law IDE!

IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment - a type of software that simplifies and enhances the coding workflow. Inspired by the IDE, we aim to bring this level of convenience for lawyers by transforming Microsoft Word into an intelligent environment to reference laws.

What it does

In response to Q16 on repapering, our plugin solution can aid with the “identification” and “extraction” aspects while human lawyers will still be required for the “impact assessment/logic” and “repapering” aspects.

Our solution can:

  • Recognise specific statutes, section numbers and abbreviations.
  • Hyperlink relevant legislation to the SSO website.
  • Flag any amendments and display changes between the date on which the document was last edited and the present date.
  • Toggle between hiding and showing links.

How we built it

  • React framework for the Microsoft Word plugin and Node JS for backend.
  • Puppeteer for web scraping, to extract the amendments to the acts and display this information on the Word plugin.

Challenges we ran into

  • Finding correct selectors in the SSO website, parsing and extracting information, and presenting information retrieved.
  • Identifying exactly which part of the clause has been amended.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of getting the MVP up and running with multiple other commitments. We believe that the product we have is unique, has lots of potential, and will save time for lawyers all around.

What we learned

We have learnt the importance of effective communication, technical skills in using web scraping and word plugin.

What's next for Law IDE

  • Expand parsing and indexing functions to accommodate statutory or codified laws from multiple jurisdictions.
  • Cloud-based solution allowing lawyers to attach notes to specific clauses and legislations which will appear across all legal documents/templates in a firm. These notes can include summaries of changes in legislations or case law.

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