Searching for arguments: applying a knowledge-based ontology of the legal domain

ABSTRACT Legal ontologies are conceptual models of specific parts of the legal domain. They provide stable foundations for domain representation, essential to building legal information systems. The ontology presented in this paper provides an analysis of the concept of knowledge in the legal domain. It is shown how new functions for IT applications in the legal domain can be developed on the basis of this analysis. In particular, a search function distinguishing between the content and structure of legal arguments is described in order to show how the analysis is put to practice.