Day-to-day research in large legal databases increasingly poses a challenge to lawyers. Growing data volumes and internationalized and diversified areas of law are making search efforts more demanding. Linde-Verlag has been providing legal publications to Austrian lawyers since 1925, particularly in the field of fiscal law. In the online portal “Linde Digital,” the publisher offers their customers efficient access to legal information. A special search function is meant to significantly expand this kind of service. To this end, the visual search system “uRank” was adapted to legal requirements. Under the product name SmartRank, the system has been supporting thousands of Austrian lawyers in their search for legal information each day since its launch in the beginning of 2020.
„The user-friendly search via SmartRank technology leads our customers swiftly and efficiently to relevant topics.“
Gordan Gajski, Head of Digital Media at Linde Verlag
Visualize large amounts of data
Based on long search result lists, the system identifies key concepts that best divide sets of search results into distinct groups. Subsequently, these key concepts are color-coded on the search result clipping while the part of the key concept in the search result is displayed as a color bar. Users can move key concepts to classify them as more or less important. The list reflecting the results is reorganized based on user settings.
The project was funded within the framework of COMET – Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies by BMK, BMDW, Land Steiermark. The COMET program is managed by the FFG.
