OPML: Outlining the Law

You may recall that I've been interested in the new OPML Editor and what it can do for lawyers—I wrote first about it here, then again here. Here's a small example of what I mean when I say that OPML could be a great thing for lawyers:

The other day on my experimental OPML blog I posted the U.S. Constitution in OPML. If you click that link it will show you the plain-text code of the outline, but CasdraBlog has a nice screenshot of what it actually looks like in the OPML Editor. I put the text of the Constitution into OPML format months ago via NoteTaker, the outliner I use daily for a zillion things, including taking notes in law school. I got the original text file from the ACS, then just added outline breaks in the appropriate places to make it an outline in NoteTaker.

Now compare the above OPML file to this version, created by NoteTaker for web use. See how the online version mimics the functionality of the OPML version? Click a plus sign to expand a section, a minus sign to collapse it. With a few clicks, you can view the entire document collapsed into a few lines, then you can expand whatever section you're interested in down to the smallest level of detail. I find this a great way to cope with a large amount of information. The collapsed view allows you to see the big picture, and then it makes it easy to get to just those things you care about in a large document.

This provides a good, albeit small, example of how well the law and outlines work together. Almost all legal writing—from memos, to briefs, to motions, to appeals, to judicial opinions, to statutes—is in outline form already, but until now we haven't really had any other option but to represent those outlines in a flat, always fully-expanded linear, way. OPML gives us a way to make those documents much more functional and efficient to use. Imagine just a single set of statutes translated into OPML: The next time you have to refer to Chapter 8, section 3(A)(ii)(c) would be a lot easier if you could collapse everything around it to focus only on that section, don't you think? Then, at a glance, you could easily see the code sections before and after the one you're looking at and scan around much easier than you currently can w/most digital versions of statutes. This would give the online versions of code the same functionality as the book versions except that OPML outlines have the added advantage of actually being indented like outlines are supposed to be. Novel idea, huh? Now, imagine a Lexis or Westlaw-type research service that was just a bunch of interlinked outlines. Think of looking at a long journal article, or an AmJur entry, or even a long opinion, and being able to collapse the whole thing with a few clicks down to just its section headings. That way you could see at a glance if it's likely that the document contains the information you're seeking. If a section looks promising, expand it to its subheads and see if any of those look good, and so on until you've found what you're looking for.

Wouldn't this be great? Or am I just outline-crazy?

Posted August 13, 2005 02:31 PM | opml