Consultation open — noslegal v4 draft
In May 2026 we plan to release v4 of the noslegal taxonomy. We are inviting comments on draft updates to five facets - Work types, Areas of law, Roles, Information types and uses, and Process elements. We’re also planning to release a substantially expanded guide with much more detail on implementation issues.
Comments are welcome on all of these until Thursday 30 April 2026.
Follow the links above to go directly to the documentation. In the taxonomy spreadsheet, red struck-through text indicates proposed removals from v3 and green text indicates proposed additions or substantial modifications. For readability, deletions within the green text are not marked-up.
Scroll down for a summary of what has changed and the questions we most want input on.
The May release will also include factual updates to Places (ISO 3166 changes and updated membership of international organisations and treaties). These are not included in the consultation as they are derived from authoritative external sources.
Work types
There are now eight categories with the notable additions of Enablement and GRC & policy. Each is defined in terms of purpose. Types and topics within each category have also been notably tightened. Read section 4.1 of the draft guide for more detail.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- The 3-level structure
- The 8 categories (1st level)
- The specific types (2nd level) and their boundaries - any points of particular interest to you
- The approach to topics (3rd level) including splitting out local extension packs
Areas of law
The most significant change here is the introduction of sectoral laws in order to avoid cluttering the main list with areas of only specialist relevance. We have also refactored some of the general categories and tightened up types and topics considerably. Read section 4.2 of the guide for more detail.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- The general vs sectoral organising principle
- The 17 categories in the general area and their types
- The handling of residual regulatory and wrongdoing areas
- The 3-level structure
- The way that sectoral laws are broken down and locally extended
Roles
Roles are extremely useful for differentiating matters and other information. For example, whether in employment litigation your firm acted for a respondent / employer or claimant / employee. We have added various roles in this release with indications of the work types and areas of law they should be made available for.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- The added roles
- The linkages of roles to work types and areas of law
- Any roles you think should be added or extended
Information types and uses
We’ve reconceptualised this facet around information types and uses, with a new grid providing examples of how they interact to provide a rich classification. Four of the five uses implement familiar KM concepts. The fifth - context - is something we suggest as adding an important dimension, including with AI in mind.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- The information types / use distinction
- The specific information types
- The specific uses - including contextual knowledge
- Whether better to wrap audience into types and uses (not yet implemented)
Process glossary
We propose to add to process elements an extensive glossary of concepts relevant to process, project and financial management of legal work.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- The definitions of what’s already in the glossary
- Anything that should be added
The guide
The guide was first published in 2025. The proposed new edition has been substantially expanded to address practical implementation topics in more detail.
Things we’d particularly welcome feedback on:
- Chapters 1 to 3: do these explain the general approach adequately?
- Chapter 4: are the facets appropriately introduced?
- Chapters 5 and 6: do you agree with the proposed practical guidance?
- Anything else we should add?