Law via the Internet 2017: Friends, Namesakes, and Global Impact

Like Kleenex, Xerox, or Velcro, “Legal Information Institute” is a generic term for organizations that offer free and open access to primary legal materials, worldwide. More than 20 years ago, a group in Canada asked us if they might use “LII” in their name — they became “CanLII”, quickly followed by “AustLII” and a raft of others.  There are now at least 20 LII namesakes worldwide.  Along with other like-minded organizations, they have created a mostly-informal, globe-spanning  alliance that calls itself the “Free Access to Law Movement’.  Over the years, we have provided advice and support to many of its members, creating global goodwill and impact from the contributions of our supporters.

Each year, the organization holds a conference called “Law Via the Internet” (LVI).  LVI2017 was held last week at the Rutgers-Newark School of Law. It was, to say the least, an eclectic event.  There were presentations on everything from a standard system of identifiers for courts worldwide to bias in search-engine algorithms to information services for the Kenyan judicial system.  Keynote speakers were longtime LII friend Ed Walters, CEO of FastCase, and Corynne McSherry, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The LII was a strong presence.  Sara Frug, the LII’s Associate Director for Technology, Sylvia Kwakye, and Nic Ceynowa described their work on Docket Wrench.  Docket Wrench, originally developed by the Sunlight Foundation, is a regulatory monitoring system that we are extending and improving with the help of students from Cornell’s Masters of Engineering in Computer Science Program.  Craig Newton, the LII’s Associate Director for Content,  talked about what we’ve learned from the strong surge in usage of our site by people checking up on statements made by government officials.  And Peter Martin, the LII’s co-founder and co-director emeritus, presented work on the realities of availability of Federal caselaw.

The real value of conferences is in informal discussions, and there were many.  We get at least as much help as we give. For example, anyone who has ever had to build a legal information system from scratch by scanning moldy legal documents has a lot to teach us. And our audience has a great deal to gain from alliances between the LII and other partners who create large caselaw collections.  All in all, it was a worthwhile and gratifying experience for us. The work being done here and elsewhere is having profound effects throughout the world, and it is nice to be reminded of that.  It all started here, and it continues because of the generosity of people like you and the ingenuity and forward-thinking of many like us around the world.

PS:  We were delighted to see a number of you at our cybersecurity panel event in New York just before LVI.  We’re doing another in Washington, DC on the 9th of November, and would be delighted if you could join us (don’t be scared if it looks like it’s an event for Cornell alumni — we told them they could come if they agreed to behave themselves).

The View from the Gallery at the Law Via the Internet Conference

At LII we think a lot about the relationship between the law and the general public. This year at the Law Via the Internet Conference, LII staff gave presentations that each, in their own way, were about how members of the public interact with the law.

Craig Newton gave a presentation entitled “When Law Goes Viral: The Implications of Social Media for Online Law Publishers.” He showed data from more than 28 million user sessions on the LII web site from January through June of 2017, exploring the specific characteristics of social media-driven traffic – particularly the smaller amount of time people referred by social media spend on the page they’ve been referred to and the smaller number of pages they tend to visit.

Sara Frug, Sylvia Kwakye, and Nic Ceynowa presented the engineering team’s progress reviving the Docket Wrench application, which makes it easier to review electronic rulemaking comments. The recent concern over fake comments on net neutrality submitted in bulk to the FCC has renewed interest in public participation in the notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The Docket Wrench application will help people involved in regulatory work find comments from repeat corporate participants and see how members of the public are weighing in.

Whether we’re looking at public participation in the development of future regulations or public self-education about what the law really says, LII has a unique set of opportunities to see what people care about and help provide them with more context for what they are reading. In other words, we help *people* find and understand the law.

Two Events on Two Coasts with One Purpose

In our last newsletter, we invited you to some events we were hosting around the country in recognition of our 25th anniversary.   We were in the heart of Silicon Valley in late September, and the middle of Manhattan just last week.   For those of you who couldn’t make it (and, with more than 40 million visitors expected to the site in 2017, we’ll say that was “most of you”), we wanted to provide a quick recap, as well as some public thank yous.

At Morrison & Foerster on September 26, Friend of the LII and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School Steve Yale-Loehr led a panel discussion on how recent and expected future changes in US immigration policy might impact the tech sector.   One highlight of the evening was when a software developer in the audience stood up and shared his own immigration story from more than twenty years ago.

Last week at Dechert LLP in midtown Manhattan, LII Bulletin alumna Micaela McMurrough moderated a panel on cybersecurity in an era of deregulation.  Not only was the panel equal parts informative and entertaining, the views of some of Manhattan’s most recognizable landmarks from Dechert’s 28th-floor conference room were something our contingency from Ithaca won’t soon forget.

Why host an immigration law panel in Palo Alto and a cybersecurity panel in New York City to celebrate 25 years of rescuing public legal information from for-profit publishers and government file cabinets?   Why not have a lovely dinner party instead?   There are several reasons, and we’ll focus on just a few here.

First, our 25th anniversary marks an occasion for some introspection–to see how much we’ve grown up from the days of Tom Bruce, Peter Martin, and some servers in a utility closet.   Of the many, many things that have surprised us about our subsequent success, one of the more powerful is our capability as a convenor.   We’ve had good luck (and even better results) building bridges over daunting chasms such as those that often exist between, for example, government and the private sector, technologists and lawyers, or academics and, well, everyone!   Calling up our friends and putting together diverse panels speaking on important topics with broad appeal across all of those areas is its own kind of celebration of the status we now enjoy.

Second, we have always been and always hope to be a public-facing information service.  A big part of that is building a creative space where some of the best and most dedicated minds in legal informatics can experiment with new ways to process, format and present useful information to the world.   The website you know and support is as much a byproduct of that work as it is the product of that work.  But bringing people important information in new and better ways is our passion.  Panel events on topics in the headlines are very much in that tradition.

Finally, the best reason for these events is you.   We sit quite literally in a tower in a law school on a campus in the “centrally isolated” community of Ithaca, New York.  There are millions and millions and millions of you whom we serve but will never meet.   While events like these will never come close to helping us reach out and connect with everyone, everywhere, it does help us connect with a tiny cross-section of our audience.  Whenever we come down out of that literal tower and leave central New York to meet with users of our website, we always walk away with valuable feedback and invaluable inspiration.   

If you’re in the DC area on November 9th, please come join us for our next event. 

LII in a Box Creator: Alfred Mahlangu, Where is he now?

In March of 2015 Alfred Mahlangu, of AfricanLII, stayed with us for a month to create LII in a Box. He was “here to get ideas”, and he felt it was a great opportunity to work with the LII team as a whole. We wrote about Alfred’s visit here, but it’s been awhile, so thought we would reach out and see how it’s been going and what else he might be working on.

Tell us about what brought you to the LII originally

The aim of the trip was to learn about how things are handled technically and have more direct interaction with the technical team at LII given that LII has been around for sometime and were best suited to offer advise on how to go about technical side of things and the experience has been very valuable for me to date.

Can you remind us what LII in a Box is?

LII in a Box is a Drupal packaged distribution that powers up standards-based free and open access legal information websites

What was the hardest part of getting LII in a box off the ground? Is that still a challenge?

Since I was new to Drupal for me it was learning about Drupal standards on how to structure modules but it got better with time.

What was the hardest court or country? – what were its challenges?

We tested with Afghanistan and translation into the Arabic was a bit of a challenge

Did anything surprise you in the way it’s being used (or anything else surprising or interesting)?

Not really

How many are using it now?

We have about 13 websites that are using it

What modifications have you made from the prototype as it’s evolved?

The big modification made was of including enabling legislation to be directly consumed from a platform called Indigo and be presented on the LII-in-a-box site as well as the use of ApacheSOLR as a search engine to give users more alternatives in terms of how they want to filter the search results.

Tell us about the work you do

You work for AfricanLII – what is your job with them?

I am the IT Coordinator for AfricanLII and my main duties include Software Development and System Administration, Project Management and Leadership

What should we know about South Africa and it’s Free Law movement?

Free Access to Law movement is good for a country like South Africa as it ensures accountability and access to justice for ordinary citizens.

What is AfricanLII’s future look like, goals, challenges, successes)?

AfricanLII’s main goal is to promote Free Access to Law and Open Justice in Africa.

Are you working on any new projects?

We have Pocket Law project that enables users who have internet connectivity challeges to  still be able to access legal information as well as mobile apps

Tell us about yourself

We see you also work with South African National Parks, what are the challenges of improving the awareness and reputation of SANParks?

South African National Parks is an organization I worked for prior to joining AfricanLII

What are your favorite parks or sites – what should we see if we visit?

My favourite park is Kruger National Park, seeing the big 5 animals

What do you like to do in your free time?

I read books on Economics,Philosophy and Politics

I keep seeing pictures of you in headphones spinning records – what’s that all about? What types of music do you play?

🙂 every now and then I get invited to be a DJ at functions and that’s why the earphones, with regards to the music type, I would say anything that has Good Tone, Rhythm and Vibration.

Are you ever coming back to Ithaca (or the states)?

In the near future yes