e-Law — Meeting No. 3

I. The framework for units 2-4

• The spectrum of structural arrangements for case law publication
• Supreme Court of the United States
• State with a "reporter" who supervises production of a set of "official reports"
• Hypothetical state, heavily reliant on the Thomson/West NRS
• Selective publication versus comprehensive distribution

II. State produced or contracted for "official reports"

• A short history of the role of public reporter of judicial decisions
• Dallas and the other early reporters
• Reforms of the second half of the 19th century
• Reforms of the early 20th century
• Public law reporting in competition with private sector law reporting
• An ever expanding feature set
• Reasons for cessation of public law reporting
• The remaining public reports:
  "The contracting-out system is fragile. Sales declines inevitably lead to higher prices, as fewer subscribers remain to pay the fixed costs of editing and production. If legal publishing companies in the future decline to bid on the publishing contract, the Supreme Court will have to end the official reports or ask the Legislature to fund new staff to provide the editorial and business services that the contract publisher now provides to the state at no cost." (Fuller)
• Are public reporter jurisdictions likely candidates for implementation of the "Wisconsin package" or likely resistors
• Muller in 1996
• Fuller today
• The law reporter / publisher relationship as constrained or defined by constitution and statute
• The law reporter / publisher relationship as revealed through a sampling of contracts (using the current Illinois contract as a baseline)
• What is the core transaction (what is the state paying, what goods and services does it receive)?
• To what extent is the state outsourcing editorial functions (from headnote creation to cite and quote checking)?
• To what extent does the contract bring the state a better price for certain legal information (what legal information, in what formats) than the public will have to pay for the same information?
• To what extent, if at all, does the contract cover electronic versions of the reports?
• Does the state end up in possession of and with extensive IP rights in the final version of the reports, in digital format?
• Any other provisions that strike you as noteworthy?
• Our discussion
• Compare and contrast
• Relate to such state background variables as seem relevant (e.g., NY versus NH)
• Degree to which relationship is etched in state law
• Degree of resistance against the "Wisconsin package" likely to flow from the relationship

III. Next week (selective or filtered dissemination versus unrestricted access)

• Readings
• Assigned: Wasby, Sullivan, Ohio Supreme Court Rule 4
• Suggested background: Proposed Federal Rule 32.1
• Questions to consider in relation to your jurisdiction (NY, CA, GA, NM, OK, VT, WI)
• Under what circumstances and for what purposes can unpublished or non-precedential decisions be cited?
• Who decides whether a decision is "published" and on the basis of what criteria?
• What is the order of magnitude of the stream of "unpublished" decisions?
• Are "unpublished" decisions available on the Internet?