646e62
commented
1 year ago Legal cases that contain multiple judicial opinions are easy to spot. At some point in the case, the text will clearly identify the concurring or dissenting judge or judges and outline the majority position. But although it is easy for a person to look at a case and quickly identify whether it is unanimous or divided, this question turns out to be tough to solve using rules- and LLM-based approaches. Rules-based approaches are hampered by heterogeneous document design (inconsistent formatting, identifying words, etc), while LLM-based approaches become problematic when large documents run up against token limits and expensive alternatives.
Majority and minority opinions only come up in panel decisions. In almost all (non-administrative) cases, only courts of appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada decide cases as panels. If the program determines that the case is an appellate case from these courts, it should run a check to see if there's an opinion plurality. If there is, the program should identify how many opinions there are and complete separate analyses for each opinion.