LegalBench: Prototyping a Collaborative Benchmark for Legal Reasoning (2209.06120v1)

Abstract: Can foundation models be guided to execute tasks involving legal reasoning? We believe that building a benchmark to answer this question will require sustained collaborative efforts between the computer science and legal communities. To that end, this short paper serves three purposes. First, we describe how IRAC-a framework legal scholars use to distinguish different types of legal reasoning-can guide the construction of a Foundation Model oriented benchmark. Second, we present a seed set of 44 tasks built according to this framework. We discuss initial findings, and highlight directions for new tasks. Finally-inspired by the Open Science movement-we make a call for the legal and computer science communities to join our efforts by contributing new tasks. This work is ongoing, and our progress can be tracked here: https://github.com/HazyResearch/legalbench.

LegalBench: Bridging Legal Reasoning and Foundation Models

The paper "LegalBench: Prototyping a Collaborative Benchmark for Legal Reasoning" presents an interdisciplinary effort involving computer science and legal studies to explore the capabilities of foundation models in the domain of legal reasoning. Authored by researchers from Stanford Law School and Stanford Computer Science, this work lays the groundwork for constructing benchmarks aimed at evaluating and improving the performance of these models in legal contexts.

Objectives and Approach

The researchers highlight the need for a collaborative framework to establish whether foundation models, known for their prowess in various natural language processing tasks, can effectively perform legal reasoning. The paper delineates three primary objectives:

1. Framework Utilization: LegalBench leverages the IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion) framework, a well-established method among legal scholars to dissect and analyze legal reasoning. By using IRAC, the authors aim to ensure that the benchmark tasks are reflective of authentic legal reasoning processes.
2. Task Development: The creation of a seed set of 44 tasks forms the backbone of the initial benchmark. These tasks are methodically designed using the IRAC framework to test the ability of foundation models in handling distinct aspects of legal reasoning, from identifying relevant legal issues to applying legal rules and formulating reasoned conclusions.
3. Community Involvement: Emphasizing collaboration, the paper calls for active participation from both the legal and computer science communities. Inspired by Open Science principles, the authors encourage contributions of additional tasks to expand and refine the benchmark. The project is hosted on GitHub, providing transparency and fostering community engagement.

Initial Findings and Future Directions

While the paper predominantly focuses on laying the framework for LegalBench, it also shares preliminary results derived from the existing set of tasks. These findings suggest that current foundation models exhibit certain strengths and limitations in processing legal reasoning tasks, an insight that underscores the importance of continued interdisciplinary research.

The implications of LegalBench are multifaceted. On a practical level, this benchmarking initiative could significantly enhance the utility of AI in legal practice, particularly in automating routine legal processes and supporting complex legal analysis. Theoretically, it offers a structured approach to gauge the capabilities of AI models in specialized, high-stakes domains, opening new avenues for research in both AI interpretability in legal contexts and the refinement of legal methodologies.

Moving forward, the authors anticipate that the collaborative nature of this project will yield a robust suite of tasks, leading to more comprehensive evaluations of AI in legal reasoning. The successful realization of this benchmark has the potential to drive the development of sophisticated AI systems that can augment human expertise in the legal profession, setting new standards for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of law and artificial intelligence.