Bloomberg has recently added a California Practice Page to its new BLAW web-based product.
This new page contains California-related current awareness (news, legislative events, court opinions, etc.) plus the California Codes, administrative rulemakings, court forms and rules and Bloomberg’s California Law Digest.
A big article in today’s New York Times Business Section, “At Bloomberg, A Modest Strategy To Rule The World,” by Stephanie Clifford and Julie Creswell, includes a one-sentence reference to Bloomberglaw.com:
“On the hunt for new customers, Bloomberg is testing a Web-based product aimed at law firms.”
Any mention of PACER or RECAP will get our attention. Just this week, RECAP made the news across the pond. “RECAP: cracking open US courtrooms: Access to US legal files is being transformed by a Napster-like sharing system called RECAP” by Bobbie Johnson appeared in the Guardian (11/11/2009).
The article starts off: “The legal system is often accused of lagging behind the technological curve – indeed, it is only a couple of years since a high court judge made headlines by saying: “I don’t really understand what a website is.” He later said that the remarks were taken out of context.” [For more on *that* judge, see here and here.]
Quickly, Johnson moves on to discuss the development of PACER, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Court’s site for Public Access to Court Electronic Records. (And, blogged about a lot on this site, here, here and here….)
The article continues:
“Their RECAP tool, as the name suggests, aims to turn PACER on its head: by making legal documents more easily available, and dramatically reducing the cost.
“All of the stuff in Pacer is, essentially, part of the law of the land,” says Harlan Yu, a Princeton PhD student and one of the trio behind Recap. “Our nation is governed by laws, and we feel like the law should be accessible to all. And being accessible, in this day and age, means that the law should be online where it’s most accessible to citizens in a way that is free.”"
As the article closes, it brings up some of the privacy concerns confronting RECAP and PACER right now.
“For advocates, the bigger question is whether PACER objects: opening access to legal documents is an important part of expanding free data and free information. After all, it was Thomas Jefferson – who made his living practicing the law, among other things – who said that “information is the currency of democracy”.”
For now, the A.O. is in the midst of a survey and evaluation of PACER and the pilot program might re-launch sometime soon. . .In the meantime, go ahead and install RECAP on your library machines.
The World Justice Forum meeting in Vienna, Austria has just released the Rule of Law Index. The Index uses numerical indicators to gauge the strength of rule of law in 35 countries, including developed and developing countries.
Here are the 4 broad criteria , with sub-categories, used to create the scores for each country. It includes compliance with international law.
1. Accountable Government
Government powers limited by constitution
Governmental and non‐governmental checks
Accountable government officials and agents
Accountable military, police, and prison officials
Compliance with international law
2. Publicized and stable laws that protect fundamental rights
Laws are clear, publicized and stable
Laws protect fundamental rights
Laws protect security of the person
Laws protect security of property
3. Accessible, fair, and efficient process
Accessible process
Fair and efficient administration
4. Access to Justice
Impartial and accountable judicial system
Efficient, accessible and effective judicial system
Competent and independent attorneys or representatives
Fair and efficient alternative dispute resolution
Rule of Law Index 2009
Want to give the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts feedback on PACER? Now is your chance.
See this new announcement on the PACER Service Center website:
The Federal Judiciary has undertaken a year-long, comprehensive program assessment. The goal of the assessment is to identify potential enhancements to existing services and new public access services that could be provided. We are gathering information through focus groups, interviews, and surveys. Please be aware you may be solicited about your views about PACER and our services with an eye towards what you, the customer, would like to see in the future.
To assist with this effort, users of PACER may participate in a short survey regarding their satisfaction with current services and any suggestions for potential enhancements. This survey will remain available to users for approximately 30 days. Please click on the following link to take this survey, and we thank you in advance for helping to improve public access to federal court documents and information:
If you have any questions about this assessment, please contact the PACER Service Center at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov.
From the November 2009 issue of Twin Cities Business: “Thomson Reuters’ Brain,” by Dave Beal
The Eagan business that was once West Publishing now supplies its parent company with the intellectual firepower to outmaneuver Bloomberg and LexisNexis in the financial and legal content wars.
Lede:
There may be no more concise way to sum up the changed nature or ambitions of the former West Publishing Company than what Roger Martin says: “We are sort of the next generation of Google — without the garbage — for professionals.”
The article discusses how successful the legal division is for the company:
Legal . . . is just one of seven primary business units . . . , but it’s a big contributor to the bottom line. In 2008, it accounted for 27 percent of Thomson Reuter’s $ 13.4 billion in revenue and 39 percent of its operating income. . . . In the first quarter of 2009, the legal unit had an operating margin of 32.1 percent versus 20.7 percent for the entire company. . . .
The article goes on to discuss the work of the company’s many “information technologists” and quotes chief scientist Peter Jackson on “the right balance of natural and artificial intelligence is a product-development key.”
One such product is ResultsPlus, which I have found extremely useful at time. Acccording to the article,
ResultsPlus is built on machine learning and natural language processing, . . . but also central to its effectiveness is that it uses the primary search results — those guided by the user — to shape the secondary search. (The “metadata” fed into the secondary search also include “West key numbers,” . . . ).
Other sections of the article include:
Thomson Sells Reuters and Vice Versa
An Edge on LEXISNEXIS?
Westlaw’s war with LexisNexis has shifted back and forth for a generation, since a version of LexisNexis launched in 1973, two years ahead of Westlaw. Lately, the clash is tilting in Westlaw’s favor.
Battling BLOOMBERG: Terminals, News, and Datafeeds
The article concludes:
Given potential growth in emerging markets and more opportunities being generated by Jackson’s R&D group, [Peter] Warwick [CEO of Thomson Reuters Legal] puts the annual revenue potential of the legal division alone at $ 14.3 billion — four times Thomson’s Reuters Legal’s revenues in 2008.
But growth will depend on how adept the company is at continuing to add value to its massive collections of data. Google searches, after all, are free; Thomson Reuters is a Google for professionals who are willing to ante up for it. As the company . . . has discovered, information itself is merely a commodity in the information age. Information as a service — infinitely searchable, sortable, and customizable — is what’s in demand.
“The One-Way Mirror: Enhancing Participation and Securing Privacy for Government 2.0″
Danielle Keats Citron
University of Maryland School of Law
Maryland Legal Scholarship Network RPS
University of Maryland – School of Law
George Washington Law Review, Vol. 78, 2010
University of Maryland Legal Studies Research, 2009-41
Abstract:
The public can now “friend” the White House and scores of agencies on social networks, virtual worlds, and video-sharing sites. The Obama Administration sees this trend as crucial to enhancing governmental transparency, public participation, and collaboration. As the President has underscored, government needs to tap into the public’s expertise because it doesn’t have all of the answers. To be sure, Government 2.0 might improve civic engagement. But it also might produce privacy vulnerabilities because agencies often gain access to individuals’ social network profiles, photographs, videos, and contact lists when interacting with individuals online. Little would prevent agencies from using and sharing individuals’ social media data for more than policymaking, including law enforcement, immigration, tax, and benefits matters. Although people may be prepared to share their views on health care and the environment with agencies and executive departments, they may be dismayed to learn that such policy collaborations carry a risk of government surveillance. This essay argues that government should refrain from accessing individuals’ social media data on Government 2.0 sites. Agencies should treat these sites as one-way mirrors, where individuals can see government’s activities and engage in policy discussions but where government cannot use, collect, or distribute individuals’ social media information. A “one-way mirror” policy would facilitate democratic discourse, enhance government accountability, and protect privacy.
Source: LSN Information Privacy Law Vol. 2 No. 41, 11/09/2009
A couple of weeks ago our friend and hero Tim Stanley from Justia gave his terrific free-resources presentation at our Advanced Legal Research class. As an in-class exercise the next class session, we asked the students to briefly share some aspect of what they learned from Tim’s talk. One student wrote:
I learned that there are a variety of free resources available besides Lexis & Westlaw. I also learned that Oklahoma is actually one of the best states in terms of keeping their cases & statutes up-t0-date online. One of the more fascinating things that I learned was that Cornell’s US Code online is probably the best free resource of the U.S. Code . . .
Since a question earlier in the quarter from a student about FDSys was followed up by an in-class answer by Public Printer Bob Tapella, we had to follow our student’s comment about the LII USC with a visit from the LII director!
One of the joys of living in the San Francisco Bay Area for me is how, at some point or another, everyone passes through. Last week Tom Bruce, from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute was in town (we knew this from his Twitter stream) and so we tapped him to come and talk to our class. Tom gave a terrific, inspiring talk to our class. More on Tom’s visit here. Tom is an incredibly dynamic and entertaining speaker — go hear him if you ever get the chance!
Tom’s talk focused on these three not-so-simple questions:
1) Why does anybody do legal research?
2) How much should it cost?
3) How good does it have to be?
Tom began the talk by showing the Bob Berring (also a dynamic and entertaining, not to be missed speaker) video that is making the law library rounds right now.
While Tom agrees with everything that Bob says (and I guess that I do too, although I wish that Bob had said “Lexis and West” rather than just “West”), seeing the Berring clip and then seeing Tom, well, the Dan Fogelberg Twin Sons of Different Mothers album came immediately to mind. See for yourself the resemblance.
The gist of Tom’s talk is now online in a new video his LII has produced.
The LII blog has more about Tom’s visit, along with a number of related links, here
“Five guys at Cornell” have done some amazing things, and Tom gave a little preview of further good things under development. Maybe high-stakes lawyers do need and will always need LexisNexis or Westlaw, but the rest of us and the entire world needs Tom and his LII.
Over the past few years, The Latin American and Caribbean Journal of Legal Studies has published annotated bibilographies of legal literature from a number of Latin American countries. Bibliographies exist for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. The bibliogaphies are written by prominent jurists and professors from the U.S. and the region.
Latin American and Caribbean Journal of Legal Studies
For effective Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting methods, check out the Effective FOIA Requesting for Everyone: A National Security Archive Guide, which most valuably includes:
Hat tip to ResourceShelf.com.
