v2.0 content overview
noslegal taxonomy
May 2023 release
This slide deck provides an overview of the content of the nine facets of our v. 2.0 taxonomy release in May 2023.
It contains some notes, but doesn’t provide the full context. For that, we suggest you read the release notes.
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Trees: if you’re unfamiliar with taxonomies, you may find it useful to think of the nine facets as separate limbs of a tree, with concepts subdividing into smaller concepts. An advantage of subdividing - up to a point - is that it allows you to roll things up (e.g. financial reporting, processes, knowledge) into larger categories for various practical purposes.
You can think of the metaphorical tree as branching upwards (ending in twigs and leaves) or downwards (ending in rootlets). But in this deck it is visualised as branching sideways for reasons of left-to-right script and screen size. As you will see, there are also elements which are not subdivisions but instead capture different dimensions, attributes, connections and combinations. Enjoy the deck and let us know what you think!
Image credit: Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Concepts to describe large areas of need for people working on legal topics, to which the noslegal taxonomy is relevant
Concepts to describe working on legal topics, or things relevant to such work
The subjects of legal work - people, property, organisations; and rights, obligations and powers
Countries, subdivisions and aggregations of legal relevance, together with information about legal systems and international organisations
A perspective from which, or context in which, a particular problem, matter or information asset is best understood
Sectors, industries and subdivisions selected as relevant to legal work
Types of law - aggregated into a number of broad categories, then broken down into more specific types
Anything in which information of any description is recorded. Includes documents but also models, interactive experiences and more.
Combinations of concepts from the above eight facets
The nine facets
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Knowledge and Systems
Work, Process and Financial
Sales and Marketing
People and Organisations
Needs is new in the May 2023 release and seeks to taxonomise the four broad areas of need for which the noslegal taxonomy has been designed.
Unlike the other facets, we don’t expect this one to be incorporated in systems - instead, it sits above the whole project, and is intended to serve as a tool for ensuring a focus on real needs.
The aggregation into four areas has some arbitrary elements (as with any taxonomy) but we do not think this matters - it’s a tool for thinking rather than an exact modelling of a complex reality.
Depending on demand, we may split our more specific needs or use cases in future.
There is a negative element to this facet as well: it serves as a reminder that noslegal is not intended for legal research of a legal-conceptual nature (e.g. deep dives into the nuances of case law) as that quickly devolves into national legal system and points of legal detail which, while helpful for such research, tend to diminish the value of the taxonomy for the four needs for which noslegal is intended.
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Resolving
Transacting
Operating
Work was first included in our March 2022 release. The May 2023 release refines in details and simplifies its internal organisation but does not extend it.
The Combinations facet includes examples of how elements from Work can be combined with elements from elsewhere in noslegal to express more complex concepts.
Over time, we expect to develop more such concepts.
Possible extensions.
Some suggestions have been made that we should explore going down to phase level and perhaps lower within work types in order to provide a fresh alternative to the LEDES / UTBMS approach which originates from attempts in the 1990s to analyse legal work in the United States. We have not yet assessed whether to embark upon such an initiative and would welcome thoughts.
+ 23 subtypes
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Core
Person
Property
Obligation
Extension Packs
1. Person roles
2. Subject connectors
3. Person features
4. Organisation types UK
Subjects was first included in our March 2022 release. The May 2023 release improves the core and extends it with four packs.
The first three XPs capture different dimensions which participants find helpful to capture - roles, connectors and miscellaneous features.
The fourth XP is a well-developed example of a particular aspect the subjects facet (in this case, Organisation, a subtype of Person), can be extended in useful ways - here, to capture all legal types of organisation known to the laws of the UK and its subdivisions.
+ 16 subtypes
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Core
Countries and areas
Extension packs
1.1 Non-English names
2.1 Regions - UN
2.2 Regions - alt
3.1 Legal systems
3.2 System types
4.1 Subdivisions
4.2 Subdivision types
5.1 Connecting factors
6.1 Memberships
6.2 Treaties
Eleven system types plus hybrids (with components)
The alt ones (e.g. EMEA variants) can be extended in future
ISO / UN plus extensions for UK and UAE
Five types of connection with places
Fifty four important treaties and their members
Places is our largest facet - the spreadsheet version has 249 rows in core and 7.3k rows in the extension packs.�
That said, most of the rows in the latter are country subdivisions (5k) and individual country memberships in international organisations and treaties (1.5k). The other XPs are smaller and more approachable, but this does not mean less valuable. You can, as always with noslegal, pick and choose which elements to adopt.
(249 of these)
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Personal life
Business
Society and authority
Perspectives was included in the March 2022 release as an experimental facet, intended to model the reality that legal matters look very different depending on the perspective from which they’re viewed (e.g. a company, an individual, the state).
We have tidied up some details but not developed it significantly for the May 2023 release - most participants in the work leading up this release are from commercially-focused organisations for whom other topics (e.g. sectors) have been a higher priority. But we propose to continue to explore its usefulness and would welcome contributions, including from non-commercial perspectives.
+ 32 subtypes
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Agriculture
Natural resources
Manufacturing
Energy supply
Water
Construction
Trade
Transport services
Hospitality services
Information services
Financial services
Real estate
Education
Care
Other services
Core
Extension packs
1. Further subtypes
These are subtypes of agriculture (3), manufacturing (11), financial services (17) and other services (3) which will be relevant to some legal services organisations but overly detailed for others
2. Alternative aggregations
There are four of these initially - Energy, Consumer goods, Fintech and Mobility. They are only outlines at this stage but may be refined and added to in future releases depending on demand
Twelve of these fifteen sectors follow quite closely the EU’s NACE taxonomy (v2.1, Feb 2023) quite closely. NACE in turn is built upon the UN’s ISIC taxonomy, which the official taxonomies of most countries extend from. The main UK official taxonomy (UK SIC) is derived from NACE but has not been updated since 2007. The main North American taxonomy (NAICS) departs from ISIC even at the top levels and more substantially lower down.
We have aggregated and subdivided information services, financial services and real estate in ways that depart from NACE for reasons explained in the release notes, so as to achieve a taxonomy which we believe better fits the needs of legal work and legal services
+ 43 subtypes
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Laws is new in the May 2023 release and covers types of law which we think are best aggregated in fairly abstract ways, based on what we have seen in our view of public law firm taxonomies as used on websites plus some private taxonomies provided to us in confidence.
It contains the seven major aggregations shown on the left.
These each contain a number of subtypes. You can choose whether to use some or all of them, and the decision may vary in different parts of your organisation.
The beauty of doing it this way, rather than rolling your own bespoke taxonomy, is that the adoption decisions made now in your organisation, or part of it, will not damage the ability to map to the approaches taken by
International relevance: this is an area in which there is a risk of laws being conceptualised in ways that are too closely coupled to a particular legal system or family of systems. We have sought to be aware of this risk, though perfection is possible. We envisage that, in future, extensions can be built containing locally-relevant subcategories.
Combinations and special topics: we have also include generic Law and Regulation concepts for combination with other elements from noslegal - see Combinations. We also suggest a concept of Special topics which can be extended to capture topics of major but only temporary or local interest e.g. Brexit and Covid.
Overlaps: we are conscious that the Laws facet potentially overlaps with other facets, in particular Perspectives. This is not a fatal problem, just something to be aware of and address in your own implementation. Over time, we will see how adoption varies between Laws and Perspectives.
Economic law
Employment law
ESG law
Information law
Criminal law
Private law
Public law
+ 40 subtypes
11
Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Legal instrument
Legal analysis
Process material
Marketing material
Organisational material
Core
Extension packs
1. Knowledge assets
2. Status
3. Audience
Information assets is new in the May 2023 release. We’ve kept it fairly simple at this stage, but extensions are likely to follow.
The first extension pack, knowledge assets, contains concepts relevant to a knowledge function (e.g. Examples and Templates) which may be applied to assets already classified using the concepts within the core (e.g. a Legal Instrument may also be an Example). But knowledge assets also has some freestanding concepts e.g. Guide.
The other two extension packs cover status (draft, final or fluid) and audience (e.g. internal or public).
Future extensions: some noslegal participants are interested in modelling specialist assets in future e.g. contractual or litigation documents and their parts. We will shortly be assessing when and how to address this demand.
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Information Assets
Needs
Work
Places
Perspectives
Sectors
Laws
Subjects
Combinations
Financial regulatory
Real estate practices
Regional litigation practices
Corporate practices
+ 12 subtypes
Combinations differs from the other facets in that it consists of combinations of elements from them.
This is an important element of our strategy of keeping noslegal as simple as we can and avoiding the fragility inherent in dealing with complexity in a less modular way.
In short, our strategy is ‘combine more, subdivide less.’
The four combinations (and subtypes) included in the May 2023 release are only examples and we anticipate extending them. You can do this yourself and keep the extensions private, but if you’d like to let us know and contribute your extensions to noslegal then that will likely increase their usefulness.
Combinations is more ‘miscellaneous’ than other facets and likely to expand in a less conceptually coherent way than the others, with considerable elements of overlap reflecting different needs. You can choose which combinations to adopt, or develop your own.
noslegal is a friendly, informal not-for-profit community committed to producing useful open source stuff about law
Questions, comments, bug fixes, ideas and interest in becoming involved are always welcome
“It's been a joy to be part of the noslegal community - so many brilliant people and ideas.”
noslegal participant, May 2023
info@noslegal.org