Overview

CodeX is a multidisciplinary laboratory operated by Stanford University in association with affiliated organizations from industry, government, and academia. The staff of the Center includes a core of full-time employees, together with faculty and students from Stanford and professionals from affiliated organizations.

The primary mission of the Center is to explore ways in which information technology can be used to enhance the quality and efficiency of our legal system while decreasing its cost. Our goal is "legal technology" that empowers all parties in our legal system, not the legal profession per se. Such technology should help affected individuals find, understand, and comply with regulations; it should help enforcement organizations monitor and/or enforce compliance; and it should help regulatory bodies analyze proposed regulations for cost, overlap, inconsistency, etc.

Our approach to fulfilling this mission is based on Computational Law, an innovative approach to legal informatics based on the explicit representation of laws and regulations in computable form. The Center's work in this area includes theoretical research on representations of legal information, the creation of technology for processing and utilizing information expressed within these representations, and the development of legal structures for ratifying and exploiting such technology. Initial applications include systems for helping individuals navigate contractual regimes and administrative procedures, within relatively discrete e-commerce and governmental domains.