A knowledge based system for guidance and training on legal concepts

The paper describes a research aimed at defining theoretical and technological components enabling a citizen to obtain guidance and training on legal concepts starting from a textual description of a case. The defined system is able to detect relevant legal concepts from the textual description also relying on a ontology and on the enrichment of the case text with common-sense knowledge. Detected concepts are used to generate a training path aimed at providing the citizen with the basis for understanding legal issues the case deals with. The training path is then enriched with legal information like relevant laws and jurisprudence retrieved on an external legal repository. This research is part of an initiative aimed at defining innovative technologies to support on-line mediation.