Unlike ordinary expert systems, an automated legal reasoning system does not aim to provide an answer. Its objective should be to provide, for any given case, a wellconstructed argument (or preferably several of them) rather than a definitive answer. In this article, some major issues in the design and development of automated legal reasoning systems are discussed. A prototype implementation of an Automated Legal Argument Constructor (ALAC) is presented. This prototype contains a federal act, Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction ACT (UCCJA), and by examining the evidence, both supporting and disproving, suggests the strongest argument. The article focuses on the foundations on which ALAC was constructed. Our intention is to provide an assessment of the state of the art; however, in some cases, we offer suggestions for new directions. *There are numerous programs that have been written to assist attorneys in several branches of law, including corporate taxation and tax planning, writing wills, adjusting claims, and case settlement. The feature that is shared by all these systems is their orientation toward decision making. We will see that the construction of legal arguments and the process legal analysis is just as important.