Patent US 8,306,936

A method for legal knowledge modeling and automated legal evaluation, such as for online, questionnaire-based legal analysis, is provided. Information, such as facts and characteristics of a legal situation or legal scenario, as it relates to a legal conclusion or a legal result, in addition to the probabilities of such conclusions or results, are modeled in a Bayesian Network. The Bayesian Network may comprise instantiable nodes, fault nodes, intermediary nodes, a utility node and decision nodes. The Bayesian network is automatically updated on a periodic basis to reflect new legislation or court decisions. Using Bayesian inference, the conditional probability of a legal conclusion based on a user's answers to a questionnaire may be determined. These conditional probabilities are modified upon the input of evidence, which is typically in the form of answers to a dynamic set of questions designed to identify a legal conclusion or a legal result.