$re = '@.*DATE \d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}(?|"(.*)".*|(.*))|.+@m';
$str = 'LAW Nº 1234/1998 - DATE 01/01/1998"LAW TITLE HERE MAY CONTAIN 4|_|D4NUM3R!C OR P_NC7U@7|()N".
LAW Nº 1234/1998 - DATE 01/01/1998LAW TITLE HERE MAY CONTAIN 4|_|D4NUM3R!C OR P_NC7U@7|()N
something that does not match';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php