Feasibility study for a legal knowledge system in the County of Herford

Abstract

In this paper we present a feasibility study we conducted in a German county in order to assess the potential of a legal knowledge system in the domain of family law. The goals of this project were to describe the actual work processes, to propose optimized processes if needed and to develop a prototype. Our study was based on interviews, on two test cases submitted to clerks and on an online questionnaire. We identified potential problems both in terms of productivity and quality of administrative decisions and demonstrated that it is possible to optimize work processes using a knowledge management solution consisting of a legal rule-based system and a knowledge-sharing component. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.