The Beat Goes On
Friends:
We can’t say it often enough: thank you. Your support helps millions of people find and understand the law each year, and it is a powerful vote of confidence in the LII’s mission. Over the past year, you have helped us navigate big changes and new challenges while continuing to serve the millions of people who rely on the LII to keep up the beat.
This year you helped us pull off a high-wire act: while behind the scenes just about everything changed, for our audience, it was business as usual. More than 30 million people from 240 countries and territories — and, this year for the first time, every continent — used the LII site. Readers came to us from Canada and Mexico, from India and China, from Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa. For the first time, we had a reader from Antarctica, where the population ranges from about 1100 people in winter to a bustling 5000 in the summer, and the claim “I live for research” is not at all far-fetched. You’ve helped us disseminate legal information to people who need it across the globe, literally.
“Your previews and the summaries triggered many news articles for the 17 years I was running a daily newspaper in Costa Rica.” – J.B.
Your donations make high-quality, non-partisan legal analysis available to the public – not just now, but also for the future. When Tom Bruce, our co-founder and director of 27 years, retired from the LII to start his next career as an electronic musician,* the inevitable trips down memory lane reminded us that while some of our work from the early days became obsolete (we’re looking at you, CD-ROM), much more of that work became reliable, and some of it became indispensable. In the mid-1990s, Cornell Law students began work on LIIBULLETIN-NY, which summarized New York Court of Appeals decisions that would otherwise not be available. Once that court set up its own website, the project transitioned to previewing the US Supreme Court docket, and this year, the LII Supreme Court Bulletin Previews celebrated their 15th anniversary. These previews might seem like ephemeral content, but they live multiple lives: the law students who staff the Bulletin write for today’s audience, but previews from prior terms are just as likely to garner traffic as the most anticipated cases of the current term. This year, the preview for Madison v. Alabama (cruel and unusual punishment where a prisoner cannot remember the crime due to dementia) topped the charts for new previews, but it was eclipsed in traffic by a preview of the 2010 Second Amendment case McDonald v. Chicago. We don’t always know what will come back on the jukebox, but the jukebox is well-stocked.
“I did not study law, but I work in a highly-regulated industry and my job has been increasingly affected by changing regulations. I was introduced to LII by one of my colleagues in our legal department and I have found it to be a great resource.” – J.D.
People often come to LII to help make sense of the many ways in which the law affects their industry, their government, and their daily lives. This year, 15 USC 206 (Standard Gauge for Sheet and Plate Iron and Steel) made the transition from one-hit wonder to steady top-100. We were not entirely surprised to discover that the news had driven some new readers to 52 USC 30121 (contributions and donations by foreign nationals) and 5 CFR 2635.203 (defined terms in ethics rules for Executive Branch employees). The case of a brokenhearted husband brought readers to our Wex article on Alienation of Affections. Overall, this year you helped us serve hundreds of thousands of people in local, state, and federal government; more than a hundred thousand people visited the site from hospitals and medical research centers; and pro bono advocates wrote to thank us for helping make their legal research affordable. We could not help them without help from you.
“I am the Internet’s TaxMama and teach about 80 distinct classes a year. I also write – blogs and books. My materials are full of links to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.” – E.R.
This past year was an occasion to focus on the future, which includes the students who will be the next generation’s entrepreneurs, civil servants, and civic leaders. Whether they come to learn about what content they may display on a banner at school sporting events, what support for their individualized education program is required, or what the Constitution has to say about free speech on college campuses, readers from 437 public schools, 274 community colleges, and 3207 universities who used the site in the past year give us inspiration and feedback – and keep us moving forward.
None of this could happen without your help. We tend to notice big impacts and dramatic usage spikes, but behind it all the LII is a group of nine people who work every day to use their skills and strengths to provide a reliable service to the public. It’s Sylvia deciphering the language and markup of the US Code and CFR; it’s Jim juggling accessibility audits, and Ayham writing APIs, and Nic making sure everything runs quickly enough; it’s Neli keeping track of our audience, and Julie keeping track of our funders, and Val keeping track of all of us. This year, Craig and I are particularly grateful to have completed the leadership transition without any torches and pitchforks, and without any disruption to the website and services that so many members of the public have come to depend upon. Your support throughout this process has meant the world to us.
Twice a year – coinciding with the Supreme Court’s term finale and the end of the calendar year – we ask you to contribute to the LII. Your donations keep the nine of us focused on what the LII can give the public, both now and in the future, and help the millions of people who rely on the LII – as well as everyone they serve, as teachers, civil servants, pro bono advocates, and in too many other ways to count. The beat does go on – thank you for making that possible.
All the best from all of us,
Sara, Craig, Neli, Nic, Val, Jim, Julie, Ayham, and Sylvia
*No joke – drop us a note if you want a link to his Soundcloud.
