The stream:

9:44 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:44 AM
event’s about to start.

9:56 gwachob via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:56 AM
At the law.gov workshop at Stanford, looking forward to seeing old #findlaw people here – anyone else I know? #lawgov

10:03 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:03 AM
paul lomio (stanford law librarian) introduces the day

10:03 Comment From trbruce
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:03 AM
Hey, kids, is it #law.gov or #lawgov ?

10:05 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:05 AM
sorry about the hashtag. turns out the DOT screws up the hash. so please use #lawgov or #law-gov

10:05 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:05 AM
Law.Gov workshop at Stanford starting with welcome by Stanford law librarian Paul Lomio … #lawgov

10:05 freegovinfo via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:05 AM
reminder law.gov hashtag is either #lawgov or #law-gov

10:05 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:05 AM
carl malamud speaking now

10:06 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:06 AM
in the last 3 yrs, legal info on the internet has moved forward very quickly.

10:06 Comment From stuartsierra
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:06 AM
I thought #law.gov

10:06 stuartsierra via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:06 AM
Correct tag for #law.gov is #lawgov or #law-gov

10:06 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:06 AM
has become a national movement

10:07 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:07 AM
new administration has moved forward with putting data online (data.gov)

10:07 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:07 AM
so now there’s an opportune time to push the idea of legal information online and not behind pay walls etc

10:08 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:08 AM
63 of 66 law schools don’t allow their students to access PACER because of cost!

10:09 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:09 AM
public.resource.org got 20mil pages of pacer documents, audited them for privacy violations, and got privacy rules changed!

10:10 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:10 AM

law.gov a 3 stage process and national dialogue. conversation will go to 12 law schools over the next few months.

10:10 Comment From trbruce
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:10 AM
what would that PACER # be if law schools were not subsidized by WEXIS? Cost is relative.

10:11 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:11 AM
point of the workshops is consensus building and real work activities like building the registry of legal materials (phase 1)

10:12 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:12 AM
phase 2 (summer) will put together a report with technical specs of what a law.gov would consist of.

10:12 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:12 AM
there might be 3 registries (for branches of govt) or many registries. point is to put an architecture in place that can be distributed, open source, standards-based

10:13 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:13 AM
pacer system is $100mil/yr generating system. so the registry needs to show that it will actually *save* $$ ($1bil!)

10:14 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:14 AM

this summer, justia will sponsor a summer of code to get all state statutes marked up in a common xml format

10:14 justia via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:14 AM
@gwachob — old #findlaw = new #justia #lawgov

10:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:15 AM
phase 3 is selling this thing: taking the report to the hill, OMB etc to demonstrate that this thing is easy, saves money and makes sense

10:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:15 AM
this AM is legal issues, this PM is technical issues.

10:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:15 AM
Erika Wayne will talk about the national registry

10:16 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:16 AM
ERIKA WAYNE (stanford law library)

10:16 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:16 AM
not just primary materials, but “primary plus”

10:17 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:17 AM
statutes, case law, regulations etc.

10:18 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:18 AM
the plus = things like briefs, filings, congressional testimonies, court transcripts, audio, building codes

10:19 CubanReuben via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:19 AM
What should be included in national repository of primary legal materials “plus?” #lawgov

10:20 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:20 AM
look at jurisdiction as well as source (like what’s already available in commercial services)

10:21 justia via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:21 AM
#lawgov — inventory primary plus – statutes, regs, case law + briefs, oral arguments….

10:25 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:25 AM
authenticity is important. at long last, GPO is signing govt docs (David Rosenthall).

10:26 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:26 AM
susan marks (hastings law school): law.gov really IS competing with lexis/westlaw in that Carl is saying law.gov will save the govt $1bil

10:28 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:28 AM
Carl Malamud: this isn’t an anti-west. it’s about reducing the barriers to entry. envision law.gov as being a bulk provider. hoping West will face an IBM moment. this could open up the potential for the market to flourish.

10:29 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:29 AM
regulatory hearings, public comments could be helpful.

10:29 CubanReuben via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:29 AM
Law.gov not anti-commercial. It’s about opening up West and Lexis to competition and spurring innovation. #lawgov

10:30 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:30 AM

another approach is case studies of who might want access

10:31 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:31 AM
i.e., journalists. by using case studies, you can show utility

10:33 stuartsierra via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:33 AM
I think we’ve already demonstrated utility of free law, but need hard data for #lawgov

10:33 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:33 AM
tim stanley: alot of $$ is spent just getting docs. also seeing west/lexis cutting deals with govt to take over the publications of regs and put up handicapped versions (no page#s, annotations etc) online.

10:34 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:34 AM
deals are with State govts

10:39 JohnPruitt via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:39 AM
RT @justia: #lawgov — inventory primary plus – statutes, regs, case law + briefs, oral arguments….

10:41 Comment From trbruce
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:41 AM
I don’t think there’s any doubt about who wants access. Start with everybody who operates or deals with regulated business. OK, that’s everybody. Next?

10:41 nanaze via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:41 AM
At @carlmalamud’s #lawgov workshop at @stanfordlaw. Engaging discussion.

10:41 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:41 AM
gpo total revenue only $220K for e-products = now reduced to zero /Carl Malamud #lawgov

10:43 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:43 AM

this should be seen as public infrastructure. it’s the highways, not a trucking company

10:44 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:44 AM
triple-keying. buy law books, send to phillippines and each book is typed 3 times to make sure it’s correct.

10:44 stuartsierra via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:44 AM
“Data as infrastructure,” I like it #lawgov

10:46 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:46 AM
need public infrastructure so that entrepreneurial companies can build the next gen legal service

10:47 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:47 AM
if you built interstates based on popularity, there’d be no highway to tulsa

10:48 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:48 AM
need features of new infrastructure that’s not part of the old. let’s stretch our minds (Ed Walters).

10:48 gwachob via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:48 AM
I love how @EJWalters compares law.gov effort to “public infrastructure” like the interstate highways #lawgov

10:48 justia via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:48 AM
RT @gwachob: I love how @EJWalters compares law.gov effort to “public infrastructure” like the interstate highways #lawgov

10:48 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:48 AM
Carl Malamud – costs $6.5 million to get F Supp triple-keyed from hardcopy – outsourced to Philipines #lawgov

10:49 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:49 AM
(Erika): so how DO we create this inventory. wiki? google group?

10:49 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:49 AM
(Malamud): can we prototype it with northern CA

10:49 gwachob via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:49 AM
“Compete on service, not data availability” @ejwalters #lawgov

10:51 stuartsierra via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:51 AM
Existing tools (wikis, etc) are insufficient for building #lawgov

10:52 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:52 AM
(erika) part of the information gathering is what content has copyright issues (ie. some state codes)

10:53 richards1000 via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:53 AM
RT @freegovinfo liveblog of stanford law.gov wkshop at 10am. hash is #law-gov or #lawgov (dot doesn’t work in the hash) http://bit.ly/86hv1g

10:54 robtruman via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:54 AM
RT @FairlyUsed: Carl Malamud – costs $6.5 million to get F Supp triple-keyed from hardcopy – outsourced to Philippines #lawgov

10:54 CubanReuben via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:54 AM
16 states claim copyright in printed codes! #lawgov

10:55 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:55 AM
(Carl) 2 soundbites that he’s found useful: 1) it’ll save a billion $$ and 2) many states claim copyright over their state statutes. policy makers’ jaws drop on that

10:57 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:57 AM
and 6 claim (c) in online codes (per Kate’s survey) RT
@CubanReuben: 16 states claim copyright in printed codes! #lawgov

10:57 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:57 AM
(Carl) copyright vs contractual restrictions

10:58 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:58 AM
another piece of metadata needed: citations

10:58 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:58 AM
Susan Nevelow Mart: authenticity in online codes matter. In California nothing is authentic. #lawgov

10:59 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:59 AM
need buy-ins from judges all over (plus his/her clerk!)

11:09 freegovinfo via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:09 AM
RT @ecarr42: RT @garvinfo GPO announces CFR (2007- ) in bulk download from FDsys and Data.gov http://bit.ly/cfrbulk #fdsys #lawgov

11:10 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:10 AM
consensus to create a spreadsheet registry. this will be posted to the law.gov google group (groups.google.com/law-dot-gov

11:11 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:11 AM
oops, it’s groups.google.com/group/law-dot-gov

11:20 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:20 AM
RT @FairlyUsed and 6 claim (c) in online codes (per Kate’s survey) RT @CubanReuben: 16 states claim copyright in printed codes! #lawgov

11:20 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:20 AM
RT @FairlyUsed Susan Nevelow Mart: authenticity in online codes matter. In California nothing is authentic. #lawgov

11:26 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:26 AM
discussion about pacer for the last 5 min.

11:28 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:28 AM
now discussion about copyright and legal materials

11:29 Dharmishta via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:29 AM
RT @DifficultProbs Follow along the #lawgov workshop live from @stanfordlaw today! http://bit.ly/76u1vG

11:29 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:29 AM
(carl) in the past, it’s been unclear about whether a court/reporter could declare copyright over court findings. supreme court found that that’s not allowed.

11:29 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:29 AM

but many states still maintains copyright over state materials

11:30 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:30 AM
some private publishers who put in page #’s, section headers etc claim copyright over that

11:31 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:31 AM
judges are skeptical, but it hasn’t been litigated recently

11:31 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:31 AM

2nd issue is “private” law. like the fire code

11:32 davidcurle via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:32 AM
Tuning into the liveblog/twittering on the Law.gov meeting at Stanford. #lawgov http://freegovinfo.info/node/2877

11:33 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:33 AM

(carl) building and fire codes from all 50 states available at public.resource.org. Carl hasn’t received any copyright violation suits

11:34 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:34 AM
Carl Malamud: no legal support that states can assert copyright in state codes – tho some states differ with him on this #lawgov

11:36 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:36 AM
the law that’s in the way is a combination of copyright (federal) and contract (state) law

11:37 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:37 AM
RT @FairlyUsed: Carl M no legal support that states can assert copyright in state codes – tho some states differ with him on this #lawgov

11:38 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:38 AM
(Ed) legal materials should be seen as poetry anthologies. the law might not be copyrightable, but anthologizing it (ie. outsource it to private vendors)

11:40 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:40 AM
by the way, I’m a documents librarian, not a legal scholar. So I’m not reporting much recently because there’s discussion about legal cases that I don’t know about (like Veeck)

11:46 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:46 AM
Could legislators inject privately published codes to public domain by enactment, as when enacting building codes? (per @ejwalters) #lawgov

11:50 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:50 AM
going to break for lunch. be back at 1 for a public discussion with Anurag Acharya (Google), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org), Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard)

11:50 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:50 AM
#lawgov liveblogged at http://tinyurl.com/ydasuqq

11:52 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:52 AM
RT @richards1000 @lawlib: From Court to Database: How Westlaw Processes Case Opinions http://bit.ly/66rgdE [nice timing w/ #lawgov workshop]

12:59 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 12:59 PM
ok we’re up and running again

12:59 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 12:59 PM
next event is:

Public Presentation, Room 290
“Law.Gov – A Revolution in Legal Affairs”
Anurag Acharya (Google), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org), Jonathan
Zittrain (Harvard)

1:04 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:04 PM
they’re still figuring out the powerpoint issues. it’ll just be a minute or two before we start

1:06 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:06 PM
roberta Morris, lecturer at Stanford law school is introducing

1:08 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:08 PM
1st speaker is Carl malamud

1:09 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:09 PM
next speaker is Anurag Acharya, google. computer scientist adn known as founder of google scholar

1:09 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:09 PM
lastly, jonathan zittrain, harvard law school. written “future of the internet and how to stop it”

1:10 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:10 PM
in the 1970s the law began to go online. impetus came from US air force

1:10 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:10 PM
system was called Flight, then called Juris

1:11 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:11 PM
which ended up becoming a company called LexisNexis. juris database had 2mil pages and they deleted it.

1:11 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:11 PM
1990s, legal information institute, justia and several others have worked to put legal information online

1:12 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:12 PM
law.gov is an effort to bring those efforts up to the next level.

1:12 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:12 PM
why now?

1:12 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:12 PM
the movement has begun, and the current administration is particularly interested

1:13 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:13 PM

the point is that govts should originate their own data

1:13 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:13 PM
doesnt’ mean west/lexis will be replaced but will face their “IBM moment”

1:14 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:14 PM
legal materials are big business today

1:14 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:14 PM
fed govt executive branch spends $250mil/yr on legal information access

1:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:15 PM
pacer charges 8cents/page to download pages. this becomes a large amount of $$

1:16 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:16 PM
charging people to access the law is an equal protection issue

1:16 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:16 PM
law.gov process is 3 phases:

1) 6 months of workshops/symposia to discuss the issues, create a list/registry of legal materials etc.

1:17 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:17 PM
scheduling workshops at Princeton, duke, UC Berkeley, Columbia etc

1:18 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:18 PM
part 2 of the process: drafting a report on what it would take for the govt to run the law.gov system. Carl feels it’ll save the govt 1billion over 10 yrs to do this. detailed technical specs based on open source software and open standards. same software could be run at each state as well as federal

1:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:19 PM
phase 3: go to washington and sell the idea. Senator Leiberman has requested a copy of the report. others in Congress have been receptive of the idea.

1:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:19 PM
hoping that the process will get legislation put forward to Congress

1:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:19 PM
Anurag Acharya starts his presentation

1:20 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:20 PM
Anurag builds software and has built google scholar

1:20 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:20 PM
case law should be really really really easy to find. that’s the undrlying basis

1:21 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:21 PM
2nd premise is a single interface for all caselaw and commentary

1:21 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:21 PM
check out http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/finding-laws-that-govern-us.html for more information on legal subset of g-scholar

1:23 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:23 PM
starting point is from people with the least familiarity. you shouldn’t have to know which database to go to

1:23 nickmoline via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:23 PM
At #lawgov workshop at @stanfordlaw Listening to @carlmalamud

1:23 judithromero via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:23 PM
RT @nickmoline: At #lawgov workshop at @stanfordlaw Listening to @carlmalamud

1:25 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:25 PM
a simple system makes it easy for people with no understanding of the law at least begin to understand

1:25 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:25 PM
also need to make it possible for people who know what they’re doing. so queries could be in terms of actual code/statute #

1:25 stanfordlaw via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:25 PM
RT @nanaze: At @carlmalamud’s #lawgov workshop at @stanfordlaw. Engaging discussion.

1:27 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:27 PM
next goal: easy to read caselaw

1:27 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:27 PM
Anurag Acharya of @Google showing Scholar #law-gov. They did such a nice job with the intuitive UI!

1:28 stanfordlaw via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:28 PM
RT @Dharmishta: RT @DifficultProbs Follow along the #lawgov workshop live from @stanfordlaw today! http://bit.ly/76u1vG

1:28 judithromero via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:28 PM
RT @Dharmishta: RT @DifficultProbs Follow along the #lawgov workshop live from @stanfordlaw today! http://bit.ly/76u1vG

1:28 nickmoline via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:28 PM
#lawgov “If you search 410 US 113, you are not a normal person” speaking about search terms for google scholar

1:30 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:30 PM
legal scholar content not from scanning but from purchase of information

1:31 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:31 PM
should be able to link footnotes and case citation always should be visible as you scroll

1:31 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:31 PM
nxt question: what can we do to help people understand?

1:32 Comment From EJWalters
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:32 PM
Anurag Acharya of @Google showing Scholar #law-gov. They did such a nice job with the intuitive UI!

1:33 gwachob via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:33 PM
I predict that when law.gov hits critical mass, we’re gonna see social media go big around law. Innovation unleashed! #lawgov

1:33 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:33 PM
Anurag Arycharya on Google Scholar: Goal 1: make it easy to find relevant caselaw #lawgov

1:33 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:33 PM
Goal 2: provide easy to read caselaw #lawgov

1:33 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:33 PM
goal 3: help understand and explore

1:34 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:34 PM
how has a case been cited?

1:35 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:35 PM
Goal 3: help users understand and explore the law #lawgov

1:37 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:37 PM
Google case law is spot on with “fair use” search – got Campbell, Harper&Row, Sony #lawgov

1:37 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:37 PM
so what’s next? increase coverage, esp for older cases. make law accessible to the average citizen

1:37 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:37 PM
what more can we do? would love to brainstorm

1:38 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:38 PM
jonathan zittrain speaking now

1:38 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:38 PM
we’re at the cradle of a new idea

1:38 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:38 PM
And what is next: increase coverage, make law accessible to average citizen #lawgov

1:38 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:38 PM
Anurag Acharya: What’s next for Scholar? Increase coverage. Would love to brainstorm with smart people. #lawgov

1:39 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:39 PM

anurag and carl have shown us a little of the possibilities and some of the “known unknowns”

1:39 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:39 PM
also the rumsfeldian unknowns

1:39 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:39 PM
lol

1:40 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:40 PM
great to see the numbers and common energy around this issue

1:40 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:40 PM
study people like peter tatum at university of tasmania. tatum in the early 1990′s built trumpet windsock

1:41 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:41 PM
Prof Zittrain: we may be at the cradle of the movement for access to law #lawgov

1:41 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:41 PM
RT @miss_eli: Anurag Acharya of Google – how to make the law easier to read? Wants to brainstorm on ideas. #lawgov

1:41 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:41 PM

facebook, twitter, google etc where a couple of people have an idea and make it happen

1:42 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:42 PM
many fits and starts. remember gopher?

1:42 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:42 PM
even if this doesn’t work, it’s a huge building block

1:43 justia via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:43 PM
RT @EJWalters: Anurag Acharya: What’s next for Scholar? Increase coverage. Would love to brainstorm with smart people. #lawgov

1:43 justia via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:43 PM
RT @caminick: Prof Zittrain: we may be at the cradle of the movement for access to law #lawgov

1:43 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:43 PM
internet archive might be a BIG copyright infringement or the BIGGEST!

1:44 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:44 PM
archive is just so damn useful that at this point if a suit were brought, the court would wreak havoc on the status quo

1:44 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:44 PM
recap is another great idea

1:44 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:44 PM
@zittrain: Great #s & energy in room for making info that already belongs to public (per Roberta Morris) & make it truly public. #lawgov

1:45 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:45 PM
you know the people at pacer are having a cow but the status quo is evolving

1:45 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:45 PM
status quo in which everyone can benefit

1:45 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:45 PM
privacy = one of the known unknowns

1:47 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:47 PM
all it takes is one OOPS for all of this good work to go for naught

1:47 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:47 PM
Zittrain: Every day that RECAP exists, its another day that the republic hasn’t fallen, becoming the status quo, harder to change #lawgov

1:47 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:47 PM
Jonathan Zittrain at #lawgov at Stanford: Cool to watch things go from 1) Revolutionary, 2) . . ., 3) Inevitable and accepted.

1:47 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:47 PM
unknown unknowns

1:47 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:47 PM
prop 8 was about to be broadcast on youtube

1:49 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:49 PM
(The trick of course comes with the ellipses — but that’s kind of where we are with #lawgov today, which makes it exciting.)

1:51 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:51 PM

how much would it cost for google to buy West?

1:52 andreasmb via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:52 PM
Norway got its its version of law.gov with $1K in capital http://www.lovdata.no/litt/papers-regul.html #lawgov

1:52 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:52 PM
RT @FairlyUsed @zittrain: Brewster scrapes web. We could talk if it’s big copyright infringement or biggest copyright infringement #lawgov

1:52 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:52 PM
excited about the prospect of a generative platform

1:54 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:54 PM
success will be realized when a movement becomes just the air we breathe

1:55 CubanReuben via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:55 PM
How much would it take for Google to buy West asks @zittrain? #lawgov

1:56 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:56 PM
@zittrain: success will be realized when it’s not a movement, but when it’s the air we believe. #lawgov

1:57 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:57 PM

breaking for 15 minutes.

1:57 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:57 PM
next up:
2:15-3:30 – Technical Discussion
Discussion of technical challenges, including specification of a core open source system, issues of markup and citation, issues of privacy, issues of ingestion, issues of authentication.

1:59 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:59 PM
RT @miss_eli: @zittrain: success will be realized when it’s not a movement, but when it’s the air we believe. #lawgov

1:59 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:59 PM
Good question – What went wrong with FLITE and Juris, and how do we make sure #lawgov doesn’t suffer same fate?

1:59 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 1:59 PM
@carlmalamud: Law last bastion of “closed” on the Internet. #lawgov

2:09 caminick via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:09 PM
RT @EJWalters: @carlmalamud: Law last bastion of “closed” on the Internet. #lawgov

2:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:15 PM
back online for the discussion on technical issues

2:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:15 PM
some of these technical issues are what they call in CS “rat holes”

2:15 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:15 PM
for example, authentication

2:16 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:16 PM
Carl Malamud talking

2:16 jasnwilsn via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:16 PM
And there it shall stay. RT @caminick: RT @EJWalters: @carlmalamud: Law last bastion of “closed” on the Internet. #lawgov

2:18 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:18 PM
idea of having summer of code at Justia

2:18 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:18 PM
looking at codes from all 50 states, put them in common XML format and make them available

2:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:19 PM
potential for legal issues arising because not all states will be happy that justia is scraping their statutes

2:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:19 PM
through this process, an xml format standard will arise

2:19 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:19 PM
formating and citations can be cleaned up

2:20 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:20 PM
the hope is that EFF can back them up on the legal issues (DMCA, contractual etc)

2:21 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:21 PM
state statutes and executive regulations

2:22 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:22 PM
Tim Stanley (Justia): codes are always something that people are interested in

2:22 miss_eli via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:22 PM
Technical discussion – how to deal with ratholes in the process of getting Law.Gov operational. Will use working groups. #lawgov

2:22 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:22 PM
for states, most of them put up codes every year or two and take down the old ones

2:23 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:23 PM
FL is only state that keeps them up longer (12 years!)

2:24 FairlyUsed via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:24 PM
RT @miss_eli: @zittrain: success will be realized when it’s not a movement, but when it’s the air we believe. #lawgov

2:27 Comment From jasnwilsn
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:27 PM
Who is updating the state’s legislation? How many get their legislation from Thomson Reuters?

2:28 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:28 PM
good question jasnwilsn. will try to ask during Q&A period

2:29 nickmoline via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:29 PM
Listening to @justia speaking during the technical session at #lawgov at @stanfordlaw

2:40 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:40 PM

how do we prevent the wikipedia issue of people putting false information into the wiki?

2:48 emasters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:48 PM
RT @NickMoline: #lawgov “If you search 410 US 113, you are not a normal person” speaking about search terms for google scholar

2:50 judithromero via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:50 PM
RT @justia: RT @EJWalters: Anurag Acharya: What’s next for Scholar? Increase coverage. Would love to brainstorm with smart people. #lawgov

3:03 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:03 PM
we’ve been talking about the rathole of authentication

3:07 EJWalters via twitter
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:07 PM
FWIW: #lawgov meeting is about 50% Mac, 25% netbook, 25% PC.

3:16 Comment From EJWalters
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:16 PM
This is about as succinct a summary of 30-minutes of conversation as I’ve seen: “james: we’ve been talking about the rathole of authentication ”

3:17 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:17 PM
my pleasure Ed

3:17 james
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:17 PM
we’re about to end. thanks everyone for following along! ttfn

3:18
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:18 PM

Speakers at this panel included:

• Anurag Acharya, Google (Lead engineer behind Google’s case law project on Google Scholar)
• Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org
• Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law School
• Moderated by Roberta Morris, Stanford Law School

Welcome to Stanford Law School
and to the first workshop on
law.gov.  I’m Roberta Morris, a
lecturer at Stanford Law School,
with a long standing interest in the
rights of the public to the public
domain.  The purpose of the
law.gov initiative, and the series of
workshops across the country, is to
develop a report to give to
Congress to authorize public access
to what the public has bought and
paid for, and indeed, CREATED,
by being part of a democratic
society.  What that is is the law of
this country, federal state and
local.
We all learned at an early age
that ignorance of the law is no
excuse.  But that means that the
law should not be an instrument to
prevent our attempts to relieve our
ignorance.  Yet the law does just
that, with the 3 C’s:  copyright,
contracts and cash.  Try to find the
law and someone claims copyright,
someone demands you take a
license first, someone says you
have pay cash up front to open the
door to the library. As we
examined this morning, each is an
assertion of wrong, not of right.

This session of today‘s
workshop is entitled the Public
Presentation.  The speakers are
Carl Malamud, the initiator of
law.gov and he will explain what it
is and why he’s brought you here.
He’s not a lawyer, but an economist by training.  He is the
president and founder of
public.resource.org and recipient of
awards from, among others,
Harvard, the EFF and the First
Amendment Coalition.

Next will be Anurag Acharya.
He is a graduate of IIT of
Kharagpur and holds a Ph.D. from
Carnegie Mellon.  He was on the
computer science faculty at UCSB
after graduate school and then he
went to Google, first working on
web indexing and then inventing
Google Scholar and making it a
reality.

Last will be Jonathan Zittrain, a
graduate of Yale and Harvard Law
and a professor of law at Harvard
and co-director of the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society.
He has published widely both in
law reviews and not, and last year
he wrote a book called The Future
of the Internet and How to Stop It.
Ever since I first heard him give a
talk about 15 years ago about
using copyright notions to maintain
confidentiality of medical records -
I have thought he gives the best
law school talks.

Let’s welcome today‘s panelists.

Stephen Schultze is Associate Director at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University (formerly of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard). His research focuses on government transparency, telecoms policy, and open source.

The movement for government transparency has often focused on just two of the three branches of government: the executive and legislative. The RECAP project takes this movement to the third branch—the judiciary. Today, government puts federal court records online in a system called PACER: Public Access to Electronic Court Records. Created by the courts in the late 1980s, the system was ahead of the curve when it first appeared. But today, PACER is a relic of an earlier era. It keeps documents behind a pay-wall and suffers many usability shortcomings.

RECAP enables citizens to easily share federal court documents. The goal of this project, over time, is to publish an extensive archive to the public for free. This will not only help people who are interested in a particular case, but will also pave the way for others to build more and better tools.

In his talk, Stephen Schultze discusses both the technical workings of RECAP, as well as the policy implications of the project.

Event details:
January 11, 2010 from 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm
Location: Robert Crown Law Library, 2nd floor Reference Lounge.
Co-sponsored by CIS, as part of our Reference Lounge Readings series.

* 9AM – Coffee available for early arrivals
* 10AM – Welcome and Overview
* 10:30AM – The National Inventory of Primary Legal Materials

Discussion of how to define primary legal materials.
Discussion of how to structure the national survey, including what information to collect.
* 11:15AM – General Discussion of Legal Issues
Discussion of issues such as copyright over primary legal materials, enabling legislation, and other issues of the law.
* 12PM – Lunch
* 1PM-2PM – Public Presentation, Room 290
“Law.Gov – A Revolution in Legal Affairs”
Anurag Acharya (Google), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org), Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard)
* 2:15-3:30 – Technical Discussion
Discussion of technical challenges, including specification of a core open source system, issues of markup and citation, issues of privacy, issues of ingestion, issues of authentication.

On January 12, 2010, Stanford Law School Library co-hosted the first Law.gov workshop with Carl Malamud.  Approximately fifty folks attended the event.  The day included workshop sessions on building a national inventory of primary legal materials, copyright and legal issues, and technical issues.

The keynote for the day was a panel on “Law.gov: A Revolution in Legal Affairs.”  The panel was moderated by Roberta Morris and included Anurag Acharya (Google), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org) and Jonathan Zittrain.

We have created this site as an archive of all the content created for and during that workshop.  And, also as a space to continue the dialog.