“Spreadsheets for law”

“Spreadsheets for Law” is the short name used to describe an argument by analogy.

In this analogy, accountants used math, and did so manually. They had the opportunity to use personal computers to automate much of those mathematical processes, but didn’t, because in order to do so they would have had to learn a programming language. Then, electronic spreadsheets were invented, and within 20 years proficiency with them was considered a basic competence of the accounting profession.

By analogy, lawyers (and others) use logic, and do so manually. They have the opportunity to use computers to automate much of those logical processes, but don’t, because in order to do so they would have to learn a programming langauge. If “spreadsheets for law” existed, they would see the same adoption in legal services as electronic spreadsheets saw in accounting.

According to this analogy, the reason that more legal services are not automated is not because of a lack of sophistication in, for example, the programming language semantics, but because of a lack of sophistication in how the power of those tools is made available to people for whom learning a programming language is not a realistic ask.

So it is not:

• a suggestion that legal-focussed programming should be done in a Tabular interface# (but also doesn’t exclude that possibility)
• a suggestion that spreadsheets should operate on logic as opposed to math (but also doesn’t exclude that possibility, which is what is meant by Logical spreadsheets#)

It is an argument that the lack of adoption of automated legal reasoning is a result of a lack of a tool that is easy enough for non-programmers to learn, and demonstrates value quickly in the learning curve, like spreadsheets did for math.

“Spreadsheets for law” is an aspirational description of what a DSL with an IDE should achieve.