Laymen can turn to legal professionals to determine their legal position, but often resolve their disputes in an informal way, e.g. by mediation, negotiation. In the BEST-project (Batna Establishment using Semantic web Technology) we strive to provide disputing parties with information about their legal position in a liability case.
With information about their legal position, parties are given the opportunity to form a judgment about whether they could hold another party liable for certain caused damage or if they could be held liable themselves. Also, parties can determine how much room for negotiation is available when settling the damage. In particular this information is important, since disputes are most frequently settled between parties themselves, rather than in court or with support of a (legal) expert(s). In addition, this information might be used to evaluate the legal advice of the attorney or an other legal professional. Naturally, it also helps parties to decide whether it is beneficial to take their case to court. Ideally, at the beginning of the negotiations, parties have an idea of what the outcome would be if their dispute would be decided by a judge. By information about previous court decisions, where relevant taking into consideration other factors such as time, costs, emotions, etc., a well-rounded impression is obtained about a parties' BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement), that is: the result that should ideally at least be reached in the negotiations (the threshold).
The BEST-project aims to provide disputing parties in a stage before they seek professional assistance with information about their position in the negotiations, to assist them in the dispute, get information about the legal possibilities to claim compensations, etcetera. The target user group of the program will generally consist of laymen in the field of law, who want to get an insight into the legal aspects of their dispute.
The BEST-project is funded under grant number 634.000.436 by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
