caseciteparser 1.0

A parser for legal case citations.

About

A parser for legal case citations.

Installation

You can install caseciteparser by running:

pip install caseciteparser

Usage

There are two user-facing functions in caseciteparser: parse_tokens(words) and parse_string(string).

parse_tokens(words) parses a list of whitespace-delimited tokens and returns a list of dicts, where each item in the list corresponds to a legal case citation found in the list of word tokens.

parse_string(string) parses a string by calling parse_tokens(string.split()).

Examples

    >>> from caseciteparser import parse_string
>>> from pprint import pprint

>>> pprint(parse_string("Mydlach v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 226 Ill. 2d 307, 311, 875 N.E.2d 1047 (2007)."))
[{'case_first_page': '307',
  'cite_string': '226 Ill. 2d 307, 311, 875 N.E.2d 1047 (2007).',
  'cite_type': 'full_cite',
  'date_paren_string': '2007',
  'end_index': 12,
  'pincite': '311',
  'reporter': 'Ill. 2d',
  'start_index': 4,
  'stringcites': [{'case_first_page': '1047',
                   'reporter': 'N.E.2d',
                   'volume': '875'}],
  'volume': '226',
  'year': '2007'}]

>>> pprint(parse_string("Charlesworth v. Mack, 727 F. Supp. 1407, 1412 (D. Mass. 1990)."))
[{'case_first_page': '1407',
  'cite_string': '727 F. Supp. 1407, 1412 (D. Mass. 1990).',
  'cite_type': 'full_cite',
  'court_jursidiction': 'Mass.',
  'court_type': 'D.',
  'date_paren_string': 'D. Mass. 1990',
  'end_index': 10,
  'pincite': '1412',
  'reporter': 'F. Supp.',
  'start_index': 3,
  'volume': '727',
  'year': '1990'}]

>>> pprint(parse_string("Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 585."))
[{'cite_string': '343 U.S. at 585.',
  'cite_type': 'short_cite',
  'end_index': 4,
  'pincite': '585',
  'reporter': 'U.S.',
  'start_index': 1,
  'volume': '343'}]

>>> pprint(parse_string("Although Illinois law recognizes limitation periods as valid contractual provisions in an \
 insurance contract, see, e.g., Affiliated FM Insurance Co. v. Board of Education, 23 F.3d 1261, 1264 (7th Cir. \
 1994) (and cases cited therein), section 143.1 of the Code is an important statutory restriction on such \
 limitation provisions, Hines v. Allstate Insurance Co., 298 Ill. App. 3d 585, 588, 698 N.E.2d 1120 (1998)."))
[{'case_first_page': '1261',
  'cite_string': '23 F.3d 1261, 1264 (7th Cir. 1994)',
  'cite_type': 'full_cite',
  'court_jursidiction': '7th',
  'court_type': 'Cir.',
  'date_paren_string': '7th Cir. 1994',
  'end_index': 30,
  'pincite': '1264',
  'reporter': 'F.3d',
  'start_index': 24,
  'volume': '23',
  'year': '1994'},
 {'case_first_page': '585',
  'cite_string': '298 Ill. App. 3d 585, 588, 698 N.E.2d 1120 (1998).',
  'cite_type': 'full_cite',
  'date_paren_string': '1998',
  'end_index': 63,
  'pincite': '588',
  'reporter': 'Ill. App. 3d',
  'start_index': 54,
  'stringcites': [{'case_first_page': '1120',
                   'reporter': 'N.E.2d',
                   'volume': '698'}],
  'volume': '298',
  'year': '1998'}]

License/Attribution

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, with the additional condition that you provide attribution to this project if you use it for academic research that results in the publication of a paper. See the LICENSE file for the actual terms of the license.

Contact

Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions, or comments, or even to let me know how you’re using caseciteparser! I’m really interested in seeing what people are doing with automated analysis of caselaw!