Edwina L. Rissland
Edwina L. Rissland studies case-based reasoning and legal AI, including shared systems for interpreting statutes and constructing arguments. Rissland earned a mathematics doctorate from MIT in 1977. She remained there as an instructor and research associate for two years, then joined UMass computer science in September 1979. Her earlier degrees were from Brown and Brandeis. Rissland, Skalak and M. T. Friedman published BankXX at the International Conference on AI and Law. BankXX uses heuristic search to retrieve cases and other knowledge for adversarial arguments.
- Works
- 79
- Citations
- 2,680
- h-index
- 28
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
-
1977–1979
Mathematics to computing
Rissland earned a mathematics doctorate from MIT in 1977. She remained there as an instructor and research associate for two years, then joined UMass computer science in September 1979. Her earlier degrees were from Brown and Brandeis.
-
1982–1988
Legal reasoning and cases
She held a law and computer science fellowship at Harvard Law School in 1982–1983 and a law lecturer appointment beginning in 1985. With Kevin Ashley, she published a case-based approach to modeling legal expertise in 1988. Her research connects legal reasoning with knowledge acquisition and learning.
-
1991
A hybrid for statutory interpretation
Rissland and David Skalak published CABARET, a hybrid architecture for statutory interpretation. CABARET was part of a program that combined case-based and rule-based reasoning.
-
1993
Searching cases to build arguments
Rissland, Skalak and M. T. Friedman published BankXX at the International Conference on AI and Law. BankXX uses heuristic search to retrieve cases and other knowledge for adversarial arguments. BankXX supports legal reasoning through cases.
Sources and credits
Photo: www.cics.umass.edu; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: cics.umass.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.