ADAC-Legal-US-PR 1.0 — Puerto Rico Jurisdiction Profile

Version: 1.0
Status: Stable
Copyright: © 2026 InnoVadens, LLC. All rights reserved.
Date: 2026
Parent Profile: ADAC-Legal-US 1.0 — United States Jurisdiction Profile

Abstract

The ADAC-Legal-US-PR jurisdiction profile extends the ADAC-Legal-US 1.0 profile with terminology, well-known value sets, and field guidance specific to the legal system of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico). Puerto Rico's private law is rooted in the Spanish civil law tradition, operates as a bilingual (Spanish/English) legal system, and has a court structure and procedural framework distinct from both the U.S. federal courts and the 50 state court systems.

This specification is a companion document to ADAC-Legal-US 1.0. Containers using this jurisdiction profile still use metadata/profiles/legal.json with profileType: "legal" and jurisdictionProfile: "us-pr".

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Conformance
3. Terminology
4. Relationship to Parent Profiles
5. Jurisdiction Profile Identifier
6. Puerto Rico–Specific Well-Known Values
7. Puerto Rico–Specific Field Guidance
8. Puerto Rico Court System Reference
9. Complete Puerto Rico Container Example
10. Validation
11. References
12. Version History

1. Introduction

1.1 Problem Statement

Puerto Rico's legal system presents unique characteristics that neither the base ADAC-Legal specification nor the ADAC-Legal-US profile can fully capture:

• Civil law tradition — Puerto Rico's private law derives from the Spanish Civil Code (Código Civil), enacted in 1889 and substantially revised in 2020. Property, obligations, successions, and family law follow civil law principles, not common law. The legal concepts, document types, and procedural terminology differ fundamentally from all 50 states except Louisiana.
• Bilingual legal system — Court proceedings, legal documents, and official records are primarily in Spanish, though English translations are routinely produced for federal court proceedings and cross-border matters. Document types, court names, and legal terms have authoritative Spanish-language forms.
• Distinct court structure — The Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico (Supreme Court), Tribunal de Apelaciones (Court of Appeals), and Tribunal de Primera Instancia (Court of First Instance) use Spanish-language names and follow procedural rules derived from the Spanish tradition rather than from English common law.
• Territorial status — Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, not a state. This creates unique jurisdictional questions: Puerto Rico has its own civil code, criminal code, and rules of procedure, but federal courts (U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico) apply both federal law and Puerto Rico law.
• Distinct document types — Escrituras públicas (public deeds), testamentos abiertos (open wills), demandas (complaints), and other Spanish-derived instruments have no direct English-language equivalent in U.S. common law.
• Notarial system — Like Louisiana, Puerto Rico notaries (notarios) have quasi-judicial powers derived from the Spanish notarial tradition. They execute escrituras públicas (public deeds) that constitute authentic instruments.

1.2 Solution

ADAC-Legal-US-PR addresses these needs by defining:

• Additional well-known values for document types, matter types, custody actions, and redaction reasons specific to Puerto Rico civil law practice, provided in both Spanish and English.
• Bilingual terminology reference mapping Spanish legal terms to their English equivalents and noting where no equivalent exists.
• Field guidance for populating case references using Puerto Rico conventions (Spanish-language court names, case numbering formats, municipio-based jurisdiction).
• A reference model for the Puerto Rico court hierarchy.

1.3 Scope

This specification defines:

• The "us-pr" jurisdiction profile identifier and its scope
• Puerto Rico–specific additions to ADAC-Legal well-known value sets
• Bilingual terminology cross-reference (Spanish ↔ English)
• Guidance on populating base fields for Puerto Rico practice
• A reference model for the Puerto Rico court hierarchy

This specification does not define:

• The ADAC core container format (see ADAC 1.0)
• The base ADAC-Legal profile schema (see ADAC-Legal 1.0)
• The base U.S. jurisdiction profile (see ADAC-Legal-US 1.0)
• Application-level APIs, user interfaces, or enforcement mechanisms

1.4 Audience

This specification is intended for:

• Software developers implementing Puerto Rico legal document management
• Legal technologists at Puerto Rico law firms and U.S. firms with Puerto Rico practice
• Genealogy researchers working with Puerto Rico civil registry records (Registro Demográfico), notarial protocols, and court archives
• Archivists preserving Puerto Rico court records, notarial archives, and property registry documents

2. Conformance

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

2.1 Jurisdiction Profile Conformance

An ADAC-Legal container conforms to this jurisdiction profile when:

1. It conforms to ADAC-Legal 1.0 (valid ADAC container with profileType: "legal").
2. It conforms to ADAC-Legal-US 1.0 (all US-level requirements).
3. The jurisdictionProfile field in legal.json is set to "us-pr".
4. The jurisdiction.country field, when populated, is "US".
5. The jurisdiction.state field, when populated, is "Puerto Rico".

2.2 Additive Inheritance

This specification follows the additive inheritance model defined in ADAC-Legal 1.0 §7.3:

• ✅ Adds Puerto Rico–specific well-known values to existing value sets
• ✅ Provides Puerto Rico–specific guidance on populating base fields
• ✅ Defines Puerto Rico–specific concepts and bilingual terminology
• ❌ Does NOT remove or redefine any base ADAC-Legal or ADAC-Legal-US fields or values
• ❌ Does NOT modify the ADAC-Legal JSON schema
• ❌ Does NOT modify the ADAC core specification

All base ADAC-Legal and ADAC-Legal-US well-known values remain valid and available in Puerto Rico containers.

2.3 Forward Compatibility

Readers MUST tolerate unknown JSON properties in all structures, consistent with ADAC-Legal 1.0 §6.3. Puerto Rico–specific values that appear in well-known value set fields are ordinary strings — applications that do not recognize them MUST preserve them during round-trip serialization.

2.4 Language Convention

Well-known value identifiers in this specification use English-language camelCase strings for consistency with the ADAC ecosystem. The authoritative Spanish-language terms are provided in descriptions and in the bilingual terminology table (§3.2) for reference and display purposes.

3. Terminology

3.1 Puerto Rico–Specific Terms

3.2 Bilingual Terminology Cross-Reference

This table maps Puerto Rico Spanish-language legal terms to their English equivalents for cross-jurisdiction interoperability:

4. Relationship to Parent Profiles

4.1 Inheritance Chain

A container with "jurisdictionProfile": "us-pr" is simultaneously:

• A valid ADAC 1.0 container
• A valid ADAC-Legal 1.0 container (base profile)
• A valid ADAC-Legal-US 1.0 container (country layer)
• A valid ADAC-Legal-US-PR 1.0 container (this specification)

4.2 What This Specification Adds

4.3 Container Format

No changes. Puerto Rico containers use the same structure as all ADAC-Legal containers:

• File extension: .adac
• Profile file: metadata/profiles/legal.json
• profileType: "legal"
• jurisdictionProfile: "us-pr"

5. Jurisdiction Profile Identifier

5.1 When This Profile Applies

Use "jurisdictionProfile": "us-pr" when:

• The legal matter is governed by Puerto Rico law.
• The document was filed in, produced by, or recorded in a Puerto Rico court, Registro de la Propiedad, Registro Demográfico, or notarial protocol.
• The document involves Puerto Rico–specific legal concepts (civil law successions, legítima, escrituras públicas, community property under Puerto Rico Civil Code).

Use the base US profile ("us") instead when:

• The matter is in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico applying federal law. However, when the federal court applies Puerto Rico substantive law (e.g., diversity jurisdiction), "us-pr" MAY be used.

6. Puerto Rico–Specific Well-Known Values

The following value sets extend both the base ADAC-Legal and ADAC-Legal-US well-known values. All parent values remain valid — these are additions only.

6.1 Document Types

Additions to classification.documentType.

6.2 Matter Types

Additions to caseReference.matterType.

6.3 Custody Actions

Additions to custodyChain[].action.

6.4 Redaction Reasons

Additions to redaction annotation reason.

6.5 Confidentiality Levels

No Puerto Rico–specific additions. The base ADAC-Legal and ADAC-Legal-US confidentiality levels are sufficient for Puerto Rico practice.

7. Puerto Rico–Specific Field Guidance

7.1 Case Reference

7.1.1 Case Number

Puerto Rico courts use a case number format that includes the judicial region, case type, and sequence:

Common case type codes:

7.1.2 Court Name

The caseReference.courtName field SHOULD use the official Spanish-language court name. English translations MAY be appended in parentheses for cross-jurisdiction clarity:

Applications MAY display bilingual court names. The authoritative form is Spanish.

7.1.3 Jurisdiction

When jurisdictionProfile is "us-pr":

Implementation note: Applications displaying Puerto Rico containers SHOULD render the jurisdiction.county label as "Municipio" rather than "County" when jurisdictionProfile is "us-pr".

7.2 Bilingual Document Handling

Puerto Rico legal documents are predominantly in Spanish. When archiving documents:

• The languages field in the ADAC core metadata SHOULD include "es" (Spanish) as the primary language.
• For documents with English translations (common in federal proceedings), include both "es" and "en".
• Transcription linked entities (genealogy:transcription when coexisting with genealogy profiles, or future legal transcription entities) SHOULD set originalLanguage to "es" and provide translatedText + translatedLanguage: "en" when English translations are available.

7.3 Notarial Act Metadata

Puerto Rico notarial acts (escrituras públicas) follow the Spanish notarial tradition:

7.4 Successions Documents

Puerto Rico successions proceedings produce documents similar to (but distinct from) Louisiana's:

7.5 Retention Policy

Puerto Rico has specific document retention requirements:

8. Puerto Rico Court System Reference

8.1 Court Hierarchy

8.2 Court of First Instance Divisions

The Tribunal de Primera Instancia has specialized divisions (salas):

8.3 Judicial Regions

Puerto Rico has 13 judicial regions. Each covers one or more municipios:

8.4 Federal Court

The U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico sits in San Juan and applies federal law. Proceedings may be conducted in English, Spanish, or both:

9. Complete Puerto Rico Container Example

9.1 Container Structure

rivera-succession-sanjuan-2025.adac
├── manifest.json
├── master/
│   └── master_0001.tif              (Escritura pública — partition deed)
├── metadata/
│   ├── core.json
│   └── profiles/
│       └── legal.json
├── regions/
│   └── master-001.regions.json
└── provenance/
    ├── log.json
    └── checksums.json

9.2 Legal Profile (metadata/profiles/legal.json)

{
  "profileVersion": "1.0",
  "profileType": "legal",
  "jurisdictionProfile": "us-pr",
  "caseReference": {
    "caseNumber": "SJ2025SU00234",
    "courtName": "Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan",
    "jurisdiction": {
      "country": "US",
      "state": "Puerto Rico",
      "county": "San Juan"
    },
    "matterType": "sucesion",
    "caption": "Sucesión de Carmen Rivera Rodríguez",
    "parties": [
      { "name": "Luis Rivera Torres", "role": "petitioner" },
      { "name": "Sucesión de Carmen Rivera Rodríguez", "role": "decedent" }
    ]
  },
  "classification": {
    "documentType": "escrituraPublica",
    "filingDate": "2025-07-20T00:00:00Z",
    "confidentialityLevel": "public",
    "retentionPolicy": {
      "period": "permanent",
      "disposition": "archive"
    }
  },
  "custodyChain": [
    {
      "action": "depositedNotarialProtocol",
      "custodian": "Lcdo. María López Martínez, Notaria #1234",
      "timestamp": "2025-07-20T11:00:00Z",
      "organization": "Protocolo de María López Martínez, Notaria #1234",
      "notes": "Escritura pública de partición de herencia otorgada ante notaria y testigos."
    },
    {
      "action": "registeredPropertyRegistry",
      "custodian": "Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de San Juan",
      "timestamp": "2025-07-25T09:00:00Z",
      "organization": "Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de San Juan",
      "notes": "Inscrita para transferir título de propiedad inmueble en Calle Fortaleza 456, San Juan, PR 00901."
    },
    {
      "action": "scanned",
      "custodian": "Departamento de Archivo",
      "timestamp": "2025-08-01T10:00:00Z",
      "organization": "Rivera & Asociados LLC",
      "notes": "Escaneado de copia certificada a 600 DPI, formato TIFF."
    }
  ]
}

10. Validation

10.1 Base Validation

Puerto Rico containers are validated by the standard ADAC validator and all ADAC-Legal and ADAC-Legal-US validation rules. No additional validation error codes are defined by this specification.

10.2 Recommended Puerto Rico–Specific Application-Level Checks

11. References

11.1 Normative References

11.2 Informative References

12. Version History