Electronic Legal
Information – in Flux
Rob Hudson
Head of Information Services
Nova Southeastern University Law Library & Technology
Center
SARC IV - 2/27/2008
Outline

Government Information




Legal Research


Changing Library – Changing Expectations
Legal Scholarship



Legislation
Case Law
Administrative Rules
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
Wonderful
news!
Example - digitally signed and
certified PDF files of the fiscal
year 2009 Budget.
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
If the primary,
online legal
resources are
not trustworthy,
how can I use
them?
“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.”
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



Rise of Blogs and Legal Podcasts



SSRN
Bepress
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




Legal Research


Changing Library
Legal Scholarship



Legislation
Case Law
Administrative Rules
Open access
Rise of Blogs and Legal Podcasts
Litigation


E-discovery
E-filing
For review…