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Docassemble – what a find!

I must confess. I have been looking for a bit of kit like Docassemble for a couple of months now. Lets have a quick looks at what it is.

What is Docassemble?

docassemble is a free, open-source expert system for guided interviews and document assembly. It provides a web site that conducts interviews with users. Based on the information gathered, the interviews can present users with documents in PDF, RTF, or DOCX format, which users can download or e-mail.

Though the name emphasizes the document assembly feature, docassemble interviews do not need to assemble a document; they might submit an application, direct the user to other resources on the internet, store user input, interact with APIs, or simply provide the user with information.

docassemble was created by a lawyer/computer programmer for purposes of automating the practice of law, but it is a general-purpose platform that can find applications in a variety of fields.

Coding

If you are considering automating your precedents and also interesting in learning how to code then you cant go past this bit of open source software.

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Construing a policy of insurance

As the policy is a commercial contract, the Court should, in construing it, “ask what a reasonable businessperson would have understood [the relevant] terms to mean”: Electricity Generation Corporation t/as Verve Energy v Woodside Energy Ltd (2014) 251 CLR 640; [2014] HCA 7 (Electricity Generation) at [35].

The task is an objective one; it involves identifying the imputed intention of the parties, by reference to the contractual text construed in the light of its context and purpose: Electricity Generation at [35]; Mount Bruce Mining Pty Ltd v Wright Prospecting Pty Ltd (2015) 256 CLR 104; [2015] HCA 37 (Mount Bruce) at [46]-[51] and [108]-[109]; Victoria v Tatts Group Ltd [2016] HCA 5; (2016) 90 ALJR 392 at [51]-[75]; Simic v New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation (2016) 260 CLR 85; [2016] HCA 47; (2016) 91 ALJR 108 at [18].

Importantly, in their joint judgment in Mount Bruce, French CJ, Nettle and Gordon JJ said (at [48]) that: Ordinarily, this process of construction is possible by reference to the contract alone. Indeed, if an expression in a contract is unambiguous or susceptible of only one meaning, evidence of surrounding circumstances (events, circumstances and things external to the contract) cannot be adduced to contradict its plain meaning. (Footnote omitted)

Their Honours also emphasised that “context” may be discerned from the entire text of the contract in question: at [46].