e-Law — Meeting No. 1

I. e-Law? <Google>

Making, Disseminating, Applying, and Practicing Law in a Digital Age
1. A swiftly evolving phenomenon
  1. 1973 — MDC introduces LEXIS
  2. 1988 — LEXIS and West settle their copyright litigation
  3. 1989 — LEXIS finally turns on star pagination; West and LEXIS introduce their respective systems for citing "unpublished" decisions; desktop computing penetrates law firms, courts, and other public bodies; first commercial law CD-ROM publications appear
  4. 1992 — LII (Internet? DOS world Separate email communities)
  5. 1993 — First WYSIWYG CD-ROM products (LII); first WWW law site (LII); first browser running under MS Windows (LII)
  6. 1994 — Decisions of US Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Canada, and a few states on the Net; “Five Reasons for Lawyers and Law Firms to Be on the Internet”; CA legislation; first appearance of a URL in the NY Times; LEXIS-NEXIS acquired by Reed Elsevier
  7. 1995 — The codes of 10 states on the Net (by 1999 all but LA (code) and CT (Sct) but numbers through an intermediary)
  8. 1996 — West acquired by Thomson
  9. 1998 — Westlaw and LEXIS both introduce Web interface with hypertext
  10. 2002 — EGovernment Act of 2002
2. eLaw - No consistent usage, the ambiguity of e___ in relation to law topics
3. eLaw - In relation to “cyberlaw” (ñ1994)
4. eLaw as used here is an expansion of such e-terms as “e-filing” and “e-rulemaking” (<1994 in relation to tax returns)
5. It can be viewed as a subset of “e-government” (ñ1998)
  1. World Bank
  2. FirstGov.gov
  3. TexasOnline
  4. #1 — Canada's Government online
    1. Different constituencies
    2. Wide range of information (weather | border wait times)
  5. Aims or purposes
6. Getting more specific about e-Law
  1. Using some e-government categories - e.g.,
    http://www.cityhs.net/dept-court-district.html
  2. Using some legal categories
  3. In relation to what it replaces
7. A course about law not technology
  1. About markets (for legal information, legal services, dispute resolution)
  2. About governmental structures and their impact on function (and the public/private division of labor)
  3. About public policy (how wise policy would shape this field)
  4. About the law of law (legal constraints and inducements — copyright, law delineating procedures, roles, and jurisdiction (up to and including federalism and separation of powers))
  5. And about time (not a history course) but about a change process involving the interaction of technology, markets, and public actors
8. Examples: delivery of legal information via the Web lovdata, efiling in U.S. district court, eregulation, vtc Social Security hearings

II. The larger question(s) we'll be exploring

Substitution possibilities — faster, cheaper, more equitable, ...
Transformation potential (including new challenging questions and alteration of both professional and public/commercial boundaries)
The public values at stake
1. Transparency
2. Access (for whom?)
3. Cost
4. Timeliness
5. Public control of public functions
Consequential effects on how law is viewed
Looking backward as a reminder that such shifts have been an ongoing story in law and for clues about possible connections between technology and law

III. Course schedule, expectations, deliverables, mode of communication

Schedule of topics (syllabus)
Schedule for major project (paper)
Other written work (weekly discussion problems)
Course Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/elaw
blackboard.cornell.edu

IV. Getting started

Evaluation of state (national) court implementation of digital technology
1. Identifying some candidates and issues for future exploration
  1. b. Does it provide a collection of the court's decisions reaching back 10 years or more that could reasonably be used by lawyers and judges trying to hold down the cost of their legal research? (If not, in what respects is it deficient?)
  2. c. Does it offer the public and the legal profession access to documents filed in matters coming before the court (e.g., petitions, briefs) or to audio or video recordings of proceedings before the court (i.e., oral arguments)?
  3. d. Does it provide access to an up-to-date and complete set of the rules promulgated by the court (not only the court's own procedural rules, but the jurisdiction's rules of evidence, rules of civil and criminal procedure, etc.)?
  4. e. Does it furnish other types of useful information to those with matters before the court? (If yes, an example or two.)
  5. f. Is the site open to indexing by Google and other search engines? (Use this test: Will a Google search for a recent decision by the court find it?)
  6. g. Does the court make possible or require the electronic filing of appeals, motions, or briefs in matters coming before it?
  7. h. Is there any indication at the site that the court will allow oral argument by videoconference (with attorneys for one or more of the parties at remote locations)?
Next week
1. Readings
  1. Assigned: Svengalis, the two Matthew Bender decisions, the Oasis decision, and the 1994 Wisconsin Bar report
  2. Suggested background: the Patterson & Craig article, the ABA report and resolutions
2. Problems to consider:
  1. Federal Circuit patent decisions — GULL | court site
    1. a small specialty publisher
    2. copyright and adoption of neutral format citation
    3. securing final version of recent decisions
    4. securing the necessary legacy collection
  2. Delaware corporate law opinions — court site
    1. a small specialty publisher
    2. copyright and neutral format citation
    3. securing final version of recent decisions
    4. securing the necessary legacy collection
3. Barriers or costs:
  1. Acquiring the necessary legacy collection — implications for both public and private actors
  2. Copyright claims of Thomson / West and private actor
  3. Citation norms
  4. Market opportunity and private actor
  5. Cost benefit equation for public actor
  6. Legal / structural constraints on public actor