Legal Event Coreference (LegalCore)
Event coreference resolution in legal documents including court opinions, contracts, and statutes. Annotators identify legal event mentions such as actions, states, obligations, and violations, then link coreferent events that refer to the same real-world event. Based on the LegalCore dataset for domain-specific event coreference in the legal domain.
Configuration Fileconfig.yaml
# Legal Event Coreference (LegalCore)
# Based on Semo et al., Findings ACL 2025
# Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00000
# Dataset: https://github.com/legal-nlp/LegalCore
#
# LegalCore annotates event coreference in legal documents:
# - Court opinions, contracts, and statutes
# - Legal event types: Action, State, Obligation, Violation
# - Coreferent events refer to the same real-world legal event
#
# Annotation process:
# 1. Identify legal event mentions in the document
# 2. Classify each event by its legal type
# 3. Link coreferent event pairs (same real-world event)
annotation_task_name: "LegalCore Legal Event Coreference"
task_dir: "."
data_files:
- sample-data.json
item_properties:
id_key: "id"
text_key: "text"
output_annotation_dir: "annotation_output/"
output_annotation_format: "json"
annotation_schemes:
# Step 1: Legal event mention identification
- annotation_type: span
name: legal_events
description: "Highlight all legal event mentions in the text and classify their type."
labels:
- "Action"
- "State"
- "Obligation"
- "Violation"
label_colors:
"Action": "#3b82f6"
"State": "#22c55e"
"Obligation": "#f59e0b"
"Violation": "#ef4444"
tooltips:
"Action": "A concrete legal action performed by a party (e.g., 'filed', 'terminated', 'signed', 'arrested', 'convicted')"
"State": "An ongoing legal condition or status (e.g., 'is liable', 'remains in custody', 'was employed')"
"Obligation": "A duty, requirement, or commitment (e.g., 'shall pay', 'is required to', 'must comply', 'agrees to')"
"Violation": "A breach, infringement, or failure to comply (e.g., 'breached', 'violated', 'failed to', 'defaulted')"
keyboard_shortcuts:
"Action": "a"
"State": "s"
"Obligation": "o"
"Violation": "v"
allow_overlapping: false
# Step 2: Coreference linking between legal events
- annotation_type: span_link
name: coreference_links
description: "Link pairs of legal event mentions that refer to the same real-world event. Draw a link from one event mention to another if they are coreferent."
source_scheme: legal_events
target_scheme: legal_events
labels:
- "Coreference"
label_colors:
"Coreference": "#6366f1"
tooltips:
"Coreference": "Both event mentions refer to the same real-world legal event (e.g., 'the breach' and 'the violation' referring to the same act)"
keyboard_shortcuts:
"Coreference": "c"
html_layout: |
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="background: #e0e7ff; padding: 2px 8px; border-radius: 3px; font-size: 13px;">
Document type: <strong>{{document_type}}</strong>
</span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
<p style="line-height: 1.8; font-size: 15px;">{{text}}</p>
</div>
<div style="background: #f0f0f0; padding: 10px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>Instructions:</strong>
<ol>
<li>Highlight all legal event mentions and classify as Action, State, Obligation, or Violation.</li>
<li>Link coreferent event pairs — events that refer to the same real-world legal event.</li>
</ol>
</div>
allow_all_users: true
instances_per_annotator: 50
annotation_per_instance: 2
allow_skip: true
skip_reason_required: false
Sample Datasample-data.json
[
{
"id": "legal_001",
"text": "The defendant entered into a lease agreement with the plaintiff on January 15, 2019. Under the terms of the lease, the defendant was obligated to make monthly payments of $2,500. The defendant failed to make the required payments beginning in March 2020. The plaintiff notified the defendant of the breach on April 1, 2020, and demanded that the defendant cure the default within thirty days. When the defendant did not remedy the violation, the plaintiff initiated eviction proceedings.",
"document_type": "court_opinion"
},
{
"id": "legal_002",
"text": "The Seller agrees to transfer all rights, title, and interest in the Property to the Buyer upon execution of this Agreement. The conveyance shall be completed no later than sixty days following the signing of this contract. The Buyer shall deposit the purchase price into escrow within ten business days. If the Buyer fails to make the deposit, the Seller may terminate this Agreement and retain the earnest money as liquidated damages.",
"document_type": "contract"
}
]
// ... and 8 more itemsGet This Design
Clone or download from the repository
Quick start:
git clone https://github.com/davidjurgens/potato-showcase.git cd potato-showcase/text/coreference/legalcore-legal-coreference potato start config.yaml
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