Global Legal Education and Comparative Visa Regulations

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Sergio Stone

Luca C.M. Melchionna, St. John’s School of Law, Columbia Univ. – Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America

available on SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1392944

Legal education is slowly but steadily becoming global. U.S. law schools are adapting to the need to educate jurists who can work on cross border issues. Within the next 100 years, U.S. law schools will face the challenges of educating an increasing number of international students, while dealing with diverse legal systems.

In the next 100 years, U.S. law schools will expand overseas with several branches (at least one in every country or group of countries with legal and economic relevancy) and will embrace corporate form and a business approach. Faculty and administrators should carefully plan today for the future placement (in terms of ranking) and development (in terms of scientific breakthrough) of their academia if they seriously consider obtaining global presence, recognition and intellectual credibility. Those who do not have plans to globalize today will struggle tomorrow locally.

Only those law schools that are investing today in a solid globalization of their curricula and hiring faculty with diverse skills will be the primary actors in the field of global legal education in the 22nd Century.

This article has three main objectives:
(a) To define the issues currently influencing the movement global movement in legal education and their effect on its future development.
(b) To analyze the visa (or entry) regulations of the countries where U..S. students currently have the privilege of travelling for study or research purposes.
(c) To analyze the host regulations that U.S. universities have to face when they plan to offer educational services in a foreign jurisdiction through a physical presence in that jurisdiction.

An analysis and comparison of the entry regulations of 16 jurisdictions will be offered, with special attention to the French, Italian, E.U. and U..S. visa situations. The paper will analyze how E.U. regulations are not completely and uniformly followed by some member states and how U.S. regulations could be improved for at least short term study programs. The legal and economic consequences of these regulations will be addressed as well.

Report on UK Civil Litigation Costs

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Sergio Stone

Yesterday’s Times of London reported on the release of the Preliminary Report on Civil Litigation Costs by Lord Justice Jackson.

The civil justice system has priced itself out of the reach of ordinary people; they face financial ruin if they venture into court and lose. That was the stark conclusion last week in the mammoth report on civil litigation from Lord Justice Jackson, the Court of Appeal judge — a conclusion perhaps predictable, if depressing.

Let’s be civil and stop ‘loser pays’ by Frances Gibb. TimesOnline. May 13, 2009

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6281621.ece

Full-text of Lord Justice Jackson’s Preliminary Report available at http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about_judiciary/cost-review/preliminary-report.htm

Outsource your research?

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Erika Wayne

The Business Standard features a story: Indian LPO Firm Scores Hollywood Victory. The victory revolves around one of the first television ‘libel-in-fiction’ actions. The details about the case, involving ”Da Ali G Show,” are in the article and here. But what is really fascinating is that the entire case was researched by outsourced help. As the article states:

“This case is said to be historic…because it is the first high-profile, US media litigation in which the legal research and first drafts of the motion papers for the defence were completed entirely offshore, by Indian attorneys at a legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm.”

I wonder what research tools these folks are using…and at what prices.

A Westlaw Tale

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Erika Wayne

Paul recently blogged here about a news headline: “Westlaw rises to legal information fame by selling free information.” The readers at the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages have written in to the paper with a number of comments. If true, what might be the most interesting comment was written by an alleged longtime employee of West Publishing. He writes:

“We had a book that just wasn’t selling, and the sales department was going crazy trying to push them out the door. Finally, a suggestion was made to change the cover and make it part of the California practice series. There are a lot of lawyers in California and virtually all of them had this series, which resembled, as I recall, a green encyclopedia. So how could we send all these California lawyers this book that they hadn’t ordered and make them pay for it? Well, normally if you get something that you didn’t order in the mail you can throw it away without paying, but there is an exception if the item is part of a series that you already bought. In that case, the recipient must either pay for the unsolicited item or send it back. In order to keep these attorneys from sending back this expensive book that nobody wanted, a new kind of box was designed with a strange diagonal “zipper.” Once unzipped, the cardboard laid flat with many fold lines and became a real puzzle. Its purpose was simply to be impossible to put back together once the box was opened! After having their secretaries struggle with it for awhile, virtually every attorney in California gave up and decided it was easier to just send a check.”

Don’t give up so easy!

To read all the comments in full, visit the City Pages site.

LexisNexis cuts 35 jobs in Bellevue

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Erika Wayne

This story from the Seattle Times:

LexisNexis, a legal and news information provider based in New York, is eliminating 35 jobs in Bellevue, according to a company statement released Thursday. The local office has about 300 employees.

The affected jobs are in product development, which will be outsourced.

Laid-off employees received one to five months of notice, and they can apply for new jobs within the company or outside employment. The company will also provide severance, continued benefits and career transition services.

[Hat tip to @trhalvorson on Twitter]

Buying information on and for your phone

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Paul Lomio

From today’s Financial Times.

Thomson Reuters upgrades applications

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

Thomson Reuters is overhauling its mobile applications for the iPhone and BlackBerry, as a first step towards charging for its content on smartphones.

. . .

Thomson Reuters has tailored its applications for the two devices’ different audiences. The iPhone service plays up video coverage and photography for a consumer-focused user base, while its BlackBerry service focuses on customised business reporting and data.

Data.gov and GovFresh.com

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Paul Lomio

Remixing government data

“Last year, before he took on the role of federal chief information officer, Vivek Kundra came up with a new twist on the idea of government by the people: Let the people build some public-facing online government applications. . . Of course, repackaging government data for education and profit is nothing new. Dozens of businesses generate income by deciphering the notices that fly across the Federal Register and Federal Business Opportunities Web sites every day. But a recent confluence of technical and political factors portends a much wider use of government data. With Web 2.0 technology, anyone with some coding skills can make their own use of well-formed government data. And with the Obama administration calling for greater government transparency, Kundra wants to replicate D.C.’s success on a national level via the soon-to-be-launched Data.gov site.”

http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/05/04/Data-democratized.aspx

New Consolidated Government Information Stream

Launched May 3rd, GovFresh “is a live feed of official news from U.S. Government Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more, all in one place.”

http://govfresh.com/

As an instructor of Advanced Legal Research I find the updates from the Law Revision Counsel to be particularly useful. For example:

US Code: House has passed H.R. 1107, to enact Title 41 (Public Contracts) as positive law. For details of the bill, see http://bit.ly/xKKi5

Source: The Intersect Alert, a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

http://units.sla.org/chapter/csfo/csfo.html

What Price, Captain?

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Paul Lomio

Yesterday I saw, and thoroughly enjoyed, the new Star Trek movie. It’s fun, and funny with some terrific lines. But one of my favorite all-time movie lines comes from the 1987 film Spaceballs:

Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!

It was spoken by Colonel Sandurz, following this dialog:

Colonel Sandurz: Prepare ship for light speed.
Dark Helmet: No, no, no, light speed is too slow.
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed, too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we’re gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed.

An earlier post here,“Lawsuit alleges Chadbourne overcharged for computerized legal research,”cited Westlaw’s per-minute charge of $ 13.86 for its ALLSATES database. I was citing from a 2006 Westlaw price list. I have since found a more recent (April 2009) price list and, not surprisingly, the cost of this access is now higher. Today the per-minute charge for using this database is $17.48.

Listed below are some of the prices for Westlaw database access as listed in the Pricing Guide for Private Price Plans (April 2009) brochure:

Per Minute Charges
All Federal and State Cases     $20.98
All Federal Cases       $17.48
All U.S. Supreme Court Cases    $8.95
U.S. Courts of Appeals Cases    $17.48
U.S. District Courts Cases      $17.48
All State Cases         $17.48
Individual State Cases $8.95
United States Code Annotated    $10.50
Individual State Statutes Annotated     $10.50
Code of Federal Regulations     $8.95
Texts and Periodicals   $23.87
American Law Reports    $20.98
American Jurisprudence 2d       $17.48
Federal Practice and Procedure $13.75
Journals and Law Reviews        $17.48
All News        $17.48

Remember that that’s per minute. Multiple some of those numbers by 60 to see what an hour fishing online would cost.

The other billing method listed in the brochure by “Transactional Charges.” A “transaction,” as I understand it, is a “search” – i.e., once in a database, entering a query and then pressing the “Search” button — ka-ching. Here are some of these costs:

Transactional Charges

(no connect time or communications charges)

All Federal and State Cases     $194.00
All Federal Cases       $120.00
U.S. Supreme Court Cases        $61.00
U.S. Courts of Appeals Cases    $73.00
U.S. District Courts Cases      $73.00
All State Cases         $120.00
Individual State Cases  $61.00
State and Federal Cases         $120.00
United States Code Annotated   $73.00
Individual State Statutes Annotated    $73.00
Code of Federal Regulations     $66.00
Texts and Periodicals   $244.00
American Law Reports     $120.00
American Jurisprudence 2d       $90.00
Federal Practice and Procedure         $104.00
Journals and Law Reviews        $120.00
All News        $120

The price list also identifies “Per Minute Billing Classifications” which includes Specialty databases ($ 12.45/minute), Premium databases ($ 13.75 per minute), Allfile databases ($ 17.48 per minute), Super Allfile databases ($ 20.98 per minutes), Select databases ($ 23.87 per minute), Super Premium databases ($ 26.17 per minute), Super Select databases ($ 30.97 per minutes), Super-Duper Select databases (if you have to ask you can’t afford it), and Super-Duper Blow-my-Mind databases (priceless). Okay, I made those last two up.

Westlaw has a terrific feature called ResultsPlus, which suggests additional resources based upon the research queries — often to valuable resources not considered by the researcher. It’s impressive, and it has its own set of costs: ResultsPlus Standard ($ 11.42 per minute), ResultsPlus Premium ($ 17.68 per minute), ResultsPlus Allfiles ($ 22.57 per minute), ResultsPlus Super Allfiles ($ 27.75 per minute), ResultsPlus Select ($ 30.98 per minute) and ResultsPlus Super Premium ($ 34.02 per minute).

All of the above charges are to find and view documents. Printing and/or downloading has its own sets of associated fees. Under “Line Pricing,” identified in the brochure as the default, “[c]harges to print and download documents range from $0.045 to $0.65 per line.” Under “Per-Document Pricing (Flat Rate Per Document),” [c]harges to print and download documents range from $5.00 to $50.00 per document.

The brochure also lists separate fees for viewing some images, fees for clipping services, fees for KeyCite Alert, Docket Alert, Transactional Citation Research Charges, Per Minute Citation Research Charges, and Charges for Previewing Documents in the Link Viewer.

I do not mean to focus only on Westlaw. LexisNexis pricing is similar — I just don’t have a pricing list handy for LexisNexis. And these are great resources — one reason why I’ll never retire is that I could not give up my personal LexisNexis and Westlaw accounts. And we law schools do not pay the above prices — we pay a flat rate, for unlimited academic use. My only beef with West (and other legal publishers) is their annual price increases that far outpace our budget increases (For United States Code and Congressional News, for example, published by West, we’re being billed $ 568.44, a 24% increase over the $ 459 that we paid last year).

Time is money, and both LexisNexis and Westlaw are attorney time time-savers. Saving an hour of an associate’s time could save the client somewhere around $ 300.00 or more. But still: When we share this pricing information with our students, their eyes do grow very wide.

But most law firms, I’m told, have negotiated flat-rate contracts for much of their LexisNexis and/or Westlaw access.

And in my opinion, one cannot perform fully adequate legal research today without access to LexisNexis or Westlaw (or possibly Bloomberg Law). That’s today anyway. Tomorrow remains to be seen.