Final Project: Property Law Assistance

By Anthony Gallino

For my final project I created a chatbot to assist 1L students in understanding difficult property law concepts in the area of Landlord obligations and Rule Against Perpetuities. You can find the bot here. To write my bot, I used a tool called QnA Markup. Basically, you create an interactive decision tree by nesting questions and answers. Here's my code.

Framing

The main problem this project hopes to address is a law student's initial struggles to understand introductory property law concepts. As Teaching Assistant to a 1L property law course, as well as consulting with my partner, students confuse the following introductory property law concepts the most. Primarily students confuse the Rule Against Perpetuities and certain Landlord obligations to tenants.

The Rule Against Perpetuities has long plagued the student and practitioner. The teaching of the concept is difficult because of its abstract nature. The general rule is stated as such: No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. This rule often raises difficult questions: what is a life in being? What does it mean for an interest to vest? These are complex concepts that often trouble students. The RAP forces you to imagine a scenario where the rule is violated. That is an abstract and difficult task for many, practitioner and student alike.

A landlord's duties with respect to the covenant of quiet enjoyment, warranty of habitability, constructive eviction, and actual partial eviction give are confusing, introductory aspects of property law that students seem to struggle with. These are often introductory concepts to property law. Quiet Enjoyment is generally when the landlord commits any interference with the tenant's right of enjoyment. This includes nuisance. Constrictive eviction is when the premise is in such disrepair or so unusable the tenant is forced to leave the premise. Often these are cases of extreme health hazards, or a nuisance so great a tenant must leave. Warranty of habitability is often confused with quiet enjoyment because it has to do with the habitability of the apartment. The warranty is broken when an essential necessity of the premise is inoperable and the landlord refuses to repair the item. Finally, a claim for actual partial eviction will stand when there is any permanent physical encroachment onto the leased premise. The issue for students at this stage is their newness to property law concepts and that many of these concepts can overlap. Discerning when each claim is applicable and spotting the issue in a fact pattern hypothetical is challenging and confusing.

The potential users of this program are all first-year law students with at least an introduction and cursory understanding of these topics, but are now trying to fully understand and internalize these concepts, advanced law students studying for the bar exam who need a quick refresher but ultimately know and understand property law, and maybe some novice/early practitioners that do not need a thorough understanding of the RAP or Landlord/tenant obligations, but want a refresher.

Research

I surveyed multiple law schools in the Boston area (Harvard, BU, BC, New England, North Eastern), and some in the Midwest (Iowa, Notre Dame, Case Western Reserve) that I thought might have some additional practice help. From what I saw, no law school had an equivalent chatbot, but often had papers or articles posted describing the RAP. All of them made reference to John Chipman Gray and his work Rule Against Perpetuities and often Professor Barton Leach's Harvard Law Review article, Perpetuities in a Nutshell. I did not think the traditional pdf, or hornbook would suffice.

None seemed to have landlord/tenant obligations. There are many clinics that deal with housing issues, but mostly in a discrimination context. Often there are chatbots to help individuals with practical housing issues regarding withholding rent, deposit issues, unlawful detainer issues, etc. They did not seem to specifically address basic common law concepts of landlord obligations. In addition, they were not designed for the first-year law student, they were designed for a low-income tenant, with low levels (if any) of formal education.

I also looked at CALI exercises. CALI does have an introductory lesson on both the RAP and on basic Landlord and Tenant obligations. They definitely helped me benchmark where CALI started and wanted to go. CALI is more expansive than this project, because this project focuses exclusively on topics where students have trouble. Whereas CALI really is a broader coverage of the subject. Also, many professors wait until students think they have an understanding of the concept, and then test themselves on CALI. This project is meant to assist students while they are learning the concept.

To convey the information about these subjects I turned to several textbooks. One was the course textbook Introduction to Property by Rabin, et. al. I also looked at Cases and Text on Property by A. James Casner and Barton Leach. I looked at Perpetuities in a Nutshell by Professor Leach. I consulted my partner, Professor Janice Griffith, in office hours and Professor Charles Rounds, professor of Trusts and Estates. I also consulted A Hand Book on Trusts and Estates by Loring and Rounds for help on communicating the RAP.

Prototyping

Immediately I thought of QnA Markup as a potential technical solution because web scraping, document automation, and data collection and analysis didn't seem to be applicable solutions. Similarly, traditional solutions like basic articles or video recordings of a talking head seemed flat and passive. I considered creating a podcast students could listen to on their commutes to school where I just talked about the RAP and how to apply it. This still felt like it would just be more of the same type of attempts that had already been tried. The best solution seemed to be an interactive solution.

Working with another platform (other than QnA) to create an interactive experience seemed overburdensome. I am familiar with QnA and I think it is something accessible to students. using a different technology-based program would have logistical issues as there is a time constraint for this project. Given the amount of time I had to complete the project and my existing experience with QnA, QnA was the way to go.

As for how I decided to present the information I was most influenced by Professor Rounds. The Rabin, et al text book had a five-step process for analyzing the RAP, but Professor Rounds had a simple to use four-step system. I prototyped both and the simplest, most straight-forward one was Professor Rounds. If the goal was to alleviate student's confusion, and reduce RAP to its most component and necessary parts, a simpler design and methodology seemed to work best.

The Rabin's text did emphasize more the idea of examining each interest and what its contingencies were. RAP follows future interests in Professor Griffith's syllabus and so it makes sense that a larger emphasis is placed on examining contingencies. I was able to incorporate some of the language from the Rabin text in my description of RAP to remain consistent and to compliment Professor Griffiths curriculum and pedagogical approach.

For the Landlord Obligations I followed Rabin's description almost exclusively. The other texts I used were more in depth and complicated. Again, the goal was to be as simple and straight forward as possible and so the Rabin text fit well.

Before I wrote anything for the bot, I visited Professor Griffith to show her the language I wanted to use in the bot to describe the law. She had final approval of the language to correct for inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

User Testing

For user testing I completed three rounds of testing. For two rounds, I asked a small group of 3-5 students that are in the class I TA for to use the bot to work through a simple RAP hypothetical I provided them. The hypothetical was O gifts to “A for life, remainder to A's children for their lives, remainder to B in fee.” This incorporated multiple contingencies and was a conveyance that appeared to be long, testing their confusion with the twenty-one years after the death of a life in being at the time the interest was created. It was a common, real-world hypothetical that Professor Griffith might give on an exam. I conducted the test by asking the students to work through the hypothetical using the bot to see if the gift violated the RAP. I sat quietly and observed their experience clicking through the bot. Then after they were done, I recorded whether they were successful in concluding whether the interest was valid. To conclude the test, I asked if the group had any suggestions for improvements to the experience, be it the language or the flow of the questions. I recorded their verbal feedback in the form of notes. You can find my notes here. I did not include students' names for anonymity purposes. The bot I used for test one can be found here, for test two, here. The landlord tenant section of the bot was less rigorous test because I did not have a hypothetical for the students. Because I tested the students late in the semester, many had already mastered these concepts and I was just looking for feedback generally on whether they felt the bot would help a struggling student. The feedback was consistent which was that they thought it would. None of the testers had much more relevant feedback on that portion of the bot. Most focused their attention on the RAP part of the bot, which was the most rigorous part of the bot. For the third and final round of testing I asked my partner to test the bot. The bot I used was the final bot for the project. Professor Griffith loved the bot, and said she had nothing to add! The final letter from my partner was emailed to you.

Refinement

As you can see between bot_test one and bot_test two the language became more robust. I continued to make sure my language was as simple as possible. I incorporated more opportunities for the user to question what each operative word meant, like what conveyance was, what vesting was, was a life in being was, what conditions precedent are, and then finally incorporated even more additional resources for the students. The most consistent feedback was to make sure the language was as simple as possible and include the purpose of the RAP rule. By the final bot you can see a much more thorough, yet refined approach to explaining the definition of each concept involved in the RAP. The language culminated in a succinct yet thorough and clear bot that the partner was satisfied with. The professor could not think of a way to make the language in the bot more concise.

Complexity

My bot only involves the use of an expert system, through QnA Markup.

Impact

Professor Griffith plans on using this bot for all her future property law courses. Generally, she teaches between forty-five and ninety property law students a semester. Because RAP and Landlord obligations is taught in the Fall only the fall students will benefit from the current bot. As each year the bot is used this bot has the potential to reach hundreds of future law students. You'll see in the sustainability section below how the bot will transfer from TA to TA. Professor Griffith also wants to incorporate the expert system in other classes she teaches and wants to learn more about how to create a QnA expert system. I think this bot will have substantial impact on students moving forward.

Fitness

The purpose of the expert system was to alleviate often confused topics in a creative, new, and interactive way. The main user of the system was a first-year property student who has an introduction to and cursory understanding of future interests and Landlord tenant obligations. This system could not fit more perfect to service these users. Even on the fringes, with students with a higher degree of understanding of RAP or Landlord Obligations the bot can continue to test and reinforce their understanding of the law. The bot helps the above average student reinforce the four steps and begin to challenge themselves with more complex hypotheticals given in the supplementary materials within the bot. The below average student can also access some of these supplementary materials for the same purpose. The bot is really designed with the target user a student with little-to-no prior introduction to RAP, but with an understanding of basic future interests. If they do not have an understanding of future interests they can use Moynihan's Intro to the Law of Real Property to get more practice at understanding future interests. The bot is easily accessible to students through the internet and virtually all students have access to a computer or smart phone which QnA can operate on. QnA certainly was the most feasible tool for this system.

Documentation

The language in the final project could not be much more concise without losing meaning. It give the opportunity for the below average user to learn more about the concepts, while the above average user can streamline through the bot's steps. The language does not use "legalese" except where necessary to get students comfortable with using the language within the trade. While the vocabulary is legal terminology, the descriptions are in plain English. The bot is designed to challenge the student to push their current understanding of the material.

Real World Application

This project is ready for prime time. Any user within Professor Griffith's class will have access to the bot through their blackboard portal. The introduction video on the QnA webpage the students will visit by use of the bot can easily instruct students should they have questions. Professor Griffith believes the bot is ready to distribute to first-year students.

Sustainability

Professor Griffith maintains a folder for each TA for each semester they are a TA. when she gets a new TA she passes along all of the materials the previous TA's have used. This bot will be included in that transfer. Because QnA has a syntax page describing the updating and expanding of this bot, this bot can continue to grow and incorporate new areas of the law students are having difficulty with. This bot will be maintained and updated through each successive TA, should they choose to use the bot. See Professor Griffith's e-mail for her willingness to continue use of the bot.

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