Electronic Legal Information – in Flux Rob Hudson Head of Information Services Nova Southeastern University Law Library & Technology Center SARC IV - 2/27/2008.

Electronic Legal Information – in Flux

Rob HudsonHead of Information Services

Nova Southeastern University Law Library & Technology Center

SARC IV - 2/27/2008

Outline

Government Information Legislation Case Law Administrative Rules

Legal Research Changing Library – Changing Expectations

Legal Scholarship Open access Rise of Blogs and Legal Podcasts

Litigation E-discovery E-filing

Tag Cloud

Problem

How can Government Information become better accessible to citizen researchers?

How can legal researchers find

electronic information faster and

easier?

Government Information in flux

Federal E-government Act of 2002 Public Law 107-347 (E-Government Act of

2002).

?

Government Information

Federal E-government Act of 2002 Public Law 107-347 (E-Government Act of

2002). Exploit recently established infrastructure.  Coordinate IT planning and common use of

architecture and infrastructure. Strengthen core information management

systems and collaboration.  Consolidate technical and operational support

Government Information

Goal: making Federal Information accessible to searches by various sources Issue: Commercial Search Engines – 75% of

citizens search for Gov’t Info this way

Ex. Google search for “small farm loans” not get to DofA site – produces advertisements for commercial loans

Government Information

Goal: making Federal Information accessible to searches by various sources Search engines index less than 40% of

government information Lack of Sitemaps Robot.txt files Deep Web Problem common to databases

Many Government

Websites seem impossible to

search

Government Information

Goal: making Federal Information accessible to searches by various sources Creation of FirstGov.gov

Government Information

Goal: making Federal Information accessible to searches by various sources USA.gov – still only reaches 50 % of content

available

Government Information

Much more needs to be done to contend with the policy of making E-government searchable

Encourage sitemaps Discourage invisible web protocols – like

robot.txt files Open source Searchable metadata

Government Information

2nd Goal: provide consistent and transparent information

Government Information

Goal: provide consistent and transparent information architecture

Section 207 of the E-Government Act specifically mandates that each agency director be responsible for creating guidelines for their agency’s Web

Government Information

Goal: provide consistent and transparent information architecture

Example from the Department of Labor

Over 47 Major Gov’t agencies!

Government Information

Attempts to consolidate agency material difficult For Example - Regulations.gov

One of the worst

Federal websites

Government Information

3rd Goal: Open Access Government

Government Information

3rd Goal: Open Access E-Government Example: Federal Blogging: GovGab

With RSS!

Government Information

3rd Goal: Open Access E-Government Example: Open CRS Reports

S.RES.401

CRS Reports were very

hard to obtain before!

Problem

With all the electronic Government Information, how are we to know the text is valid – that is authenticated?

Problem

With all the electronic Government Information, how are we to know the text is valid – that is authenticated?

Can we know the information is reliable? To make decisions based on this information it

must be dependable.

Authentication in flux

GPO’s Authentication Initiative Issue: digital technology makes such

documents easy to alter or copy, leading to multiple non-identical versions that can be used in unauthorized or illegitimate ways.

Authentication

GPO’s Authentication Initiative GPO introduced a digital certificate to apply

digital signatures to PDF documents Public Law 110-3

Example - digitally signed and certified PDF files of the fiscal year 2009 Budget.

Wonderful news!

Authentication

At the State Government level there is no consistency as to online documents AALL: State-By-State Report on

Authentication of Online Legal Resources (March 2007).

Key Finding 1: States have begun substitute online official legal sources

Key Finding 2: Ten states and D.C. have deemed as official one or more of their online primary legal resources

Authentication

At the State Government level there is no consistency as to online documents

“A significant number of the state online legal resources are official but none are authenticated or afford ready authentication by standard methods. State online primary legal resources are therefore not sufficiently trustworthy. Citizens and law researchers may reasonably doubt their authority and should approach such resources critically.”

If the primary, online legal

resources are not trustworthy, how can I use

them?

What about Courts?

More courts are placing decisions and orders online

Requiring e-dockets Making online sources ‘Official.’

Meaning they can be cited to in pleadings

Can these be authenticated

?

What about Courts?

Example: Alaska, Indiana, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Utah have declared the online versions of legal resources a substitute for a print official source. None of the online legal sources is capable of

being considered authentic.

What about Courts?

Electronic versions are changing the way courts treat legal information New rules allowing citation to unpublished

cases because they are now so available electronically

Court rules are being

changed by electronic

technology?

What about Courts?

Electronic versions are changing the way courts treat legal information

E-filing fully electronic docket system. Those highly wired courts -- along with the

nearly 10-year-old federal electronic system called Pacer -- have set a higher standard for electronic access and are drawing other state courts, such as those in Illinois, Florida and California, toward technological benefits.

Access to legal information as never before

Legal Research – in flux

Changing law libraries Cancelling of print resources Just in time collection polices ABA – allowing count of titles not volumes for

the first time in academic law libraries

Legal Research – in flux

Changing legal research preferences Law students almost universally expecting

online access to legal information

Legal Research – in flux

Changing legal research preferences Law students almost universally expecting

online access to legal information Problem is that unless they have access later

as practitioners, a growing amount of legal information is becoming password protected

Legal Scholarship – in flux

Open access verses subscription journals SSRN Bepress

Rise of Blogs and Legal Podcasts Evidence that they are overrunning traditional

law reviews – blawgsearch Tenure committees are valuing these towards

retention for the first time Law Reviews

Still dependant on print – sourcing is a problem, particularly the search for pagination.

Legal Scholarship – in flux

New Sources of Legal Information on the Rise

Law Firm Sponsored Websites E.g. McNabb & Associates – extradition

Legal Scholarship – in flux

New Sources of Legal Information on the Rise

Free Access to Law Websites WorldLII EISIL Public Law Library

Litigation – in flux

E-discovery E-filing E-research E-government E-clients CSI type-effect

Changing practice at every level

Outline – redux

Government Information Legislation Case Law Administrative Rules

Legal Research Changing Library

Legal Scholarship Open access Rise of Blogs and Legal Podcasts

Litigation E-discovery E-filing

For review…