A legal negotiatiton support system based on a diagram

We present an overview of a legal negotiation support system, ANS (Argumentation based Negotiation support System). ANS consists of a user interface, three inference engines, a database of old cases, and two decision support modules. The ANS users negotiates or disputes with others via a computer network. The negotiation status is managed in the form of the negotiation diagram. The negotiation diagram is an extension of Toulmin's argument diagram, and it contains all arguments insisted by participants. The negotiation protocols are defined as operations to the negotiation diagram. By exchanging counter arguments each other, the negotiation diagram grows up. Nonmonotonic reasoning using rule priorities are applied to the negotiation diagram.