What is this?

This is an atlas of Canadian Supreme Court case law citations. It is an experiment in computational legal visualization and public legal accessibility.

Nodes

Each node represents a case. A node's size can represent one of three things, depending on what you select:

Authority score (the default) — a measure of how often the case is cited by important cases.
Co-citation count — how often the case is cited alongside other cases.
Hub score — a measure of how often the case cites important cases.

Authority and hub scores are calculated using the HITS algorithm — the same family of algorithms originally used by Google to rank websites.

An authority is a foundational case repeatedly relied upon by influential decisions. A hub is a case that surveys and connects important areas of law.

Edges & Colors

Lines connect cases that are cited together in a later case. The more frequently two cases are co-cited, the thicker the line between them. A minimum of 3 co-citations is required for a connection to appear.

Colors represent clusters of densely connected cases, calculated using Louvain Community Analysis. These clusters appear to roughly correspond with different areas of law.

The atlas layout was generated using a ForceAtlas2 force-directed graph algorithm. Each node repels other nodes, while co-citations pull related cases together.

Controls

Left click and drag to pan.
Scroll to zoom, or use the zoom buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Click on a node to filter the atlas to that case's connections and display its information.
Use the search bar to locate a specific case and filter the atlas to its connections.
Adjust the number of visible case labels using the slider in the main panel.

This project was built using Claude and Gephi.

Case data was sourced from the A2AJ project. A more detailed explanation of the atlas methodology can be found here.

I want to keep this project free, public, and running for as long as possible. If you found the atlas useful, interesting, or beautiful, you can help cover hosting and API costs here.

Questions, comments, or suggestions can be sent to eugenefds3 at gmail dot com.

— Eugene