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I just got back from the 2016 CALI conference at the Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta, Georgia. This report of my time there is by no means an exhaustive or even chronological record of the conference. It's more of a highlight reel.

CALI 2016 Banner: The year of learning dangerously

This was my second time attending and it still holds the title as my favorite conference. The food was great, the talks were excellent and there was a lot of time between sessions to have interesting conversations with many of the diverse and smart attendees who came from all over North America. Kudos to the organizers.

The conference officially started on Thursday, June 16th, when Indiana Jones, aka John Mayer, executive director of CALI, found the golden plaque of CALI after a harrowing traversal of the conference room, dodging obstacles. He gave a brief but warm welcome address and introduced the keynote speaker, Hugh McGuire, founder of PressBooks and LibriVox.org. With anecdotes from his biography, Mr Mcguire encouraged us to be proactive in solving big problems.

We had another keynote speaker on Friday, Michael Feldstein of Mindwires Consulting and co-producer of e-Literate TV.

Question: To what extent is your institution a school, versus a filtering mechanism tied to a self-study center?

He confessed to being something of a provocateur and succeeded in raising a few hackles when he asked, "Do law schools exist?" among other questions.

He then challenged us to do better at teaching students with different learning styles and skill-sets.

My two favorite presentations out of many excellent sessions were "The WeCite Project" by Pablo Arredondo from Casetext and "So you've digitized U.S. caselaw, now what?" by Adam Ziegler and Jack Cushman from the Harvard Library Innovation Lab.

Pablo described teaching students to be their own legal shepherds by gamifying the creation and categorization of citator entries. The result of this effort is a database of every outgoing citation from the last 20 years of Supreme Court majority opinions and federal appellate courts, unambiguously labelled either as a positive, referencing, distinguishing, or negative citation. This data will be hosted by us (LII) and made freely available without restriction. In addition to the valuable data, he also shared how to engage students, librarians and research instructors as partners in the free law movement.

After a brief presentation of some of the ways they are beginning to use data from all the digitized case laws, Adam and Jack invited us to imagine what we could do with data. I can see possibilities for topic modeling, discovery of multi-faceted relationships between cases, and mapping of changes in contract conditions, etc. Many more features, tools and use cases were suggested by the other attendees. We welcome you to send us your personal wish list for features to make this information useful to you.

I also participated in a panel discussion on software management of large digital archives, moderated by Wilhelmina Randtke (Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative), along with Jack Cushman and Wei Fang (Assistant Dean for Information Technology and Head of Digital Services, Rutgers Law Library).

There was so much interest in the Oyez Project moving to the LII, that Craig's presentation on LII's use of web analytics, was replaced by a discussion hosted by Craig and Tim Stanley (Justia) on the transition. The rather lively discussion was made all the more entertaining by an impromptu costume change by Craig. The prevailing sentiment after the discussion was that the Oyez Project was in the best possible hands and 'safe'.

An unexpected bonus were the number of LII users who made it a point to complement the LII and express how useful they find our services. One particularly enthusiastic fan was DeAnna Swearington, Director of Operations at Quimbee.com (Learning tools for law students). I also met Wilson Tsu, CEO of LearnLeo and a Cornell alum, who had fond memories of when the LII first started. There were also several former law students who told me how invaluable the LII collections had been to them in school and continues to be in their current occupations.

All in all, a successful and enlightening conference. A big thank you to the organizers. They did an excellent job. I am already looking forward to next year!

Great was the rejoicing in the south tower of Myron Taylor Hall, headquarters of the LII, when we got notice of the bulk release of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) in XML format.

What was not to like? The data was as up-to-date as the CFR could get, the XML was much cleaner than the book version, it had a friendly user guide etc., etc., etc..

It was also different enough from the book XML of the CFR, that we could not simply run it through our existing data enrichment process and serve it to the public as is. So, we curbed our enthusiasm long enough to put together a measured plan to re-do our code.

We have heard enough from you, our wonderful readers, that text indentation was one of the most valued features of our data presentation. Thus, it was the first feature we chose to implement.

All this verbosity is the set-up for a look at some of the messy sausage making details of adding indentation to the eCFR.

***

If you’re not familiar with XML (eXtensible Markup Language), it’s simply a way of marking up data with a predefined, consistent set of descriptive tags that are both easily human and machine readable. So, when we get XML data from the GPO, it looks something like this…

Snippet 1: XML from Title 1 of the CFR
==============================================
<?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8 ?>
<DLPSTEXTCLASS>
<HEADER>
<FILEDESC>
<TITLESTMT>
<TITLE>
Title 1: General Provisions</TITLE>
<AUTHOR TYPE=nameinv>
</AUTHOR>
</TITLESTMT>
<PUBLICATIONSTMT>
<PUBLISHER>
</PUBLISHER>
<PUBPLACE>
</PUBPLACE>
<IDNO TYPE=title>
1</IDNO>
<DATE></DATE>
</PUBLICATIONSTMT>
<SERIESSTMT>
<TITLE>
</TITLE>
</SERIESSTMT>
</FILEDESC>
<PROFILEDESC>
<TEXTCLASS>
<KEYWORDS>
</KEYWORDS>
</TEXTCLASS>
</PROFILEDESC>
</HEADER>
<TEXT>
<BODY>
<ECFRBRWS>
<AMDDATE>Jan. 30, 2015</AMDDATE>
<DIV1 N=1 NODE=1:1 TYPE=TITLE>
<HEAD>Title 1 – General Provisions–Volume 1</HEAD>
<CFRTOC>
<PTHD>Part </PTHD>
<CHAPTI>
<SUBJECT><E T=04>chapter i</E> – Administrative Committee of the Federal Register </SUBJECT>
<PG>1</PG></CHAPTI>
<CHAPTI>
<SUBJECT><E T=04>chapter ii</E> – Office of the Federal Register </SUBJECT>
<PG>51</PG></CHAPTI>
<CHAPTI>
<SUBJECT><E T=04>chapter iii</E> – Administrative Conference of the United States </SUBJECT>
<PG>301</PG></CHAPTI>
<CHAPTI>
<SUBJECT><E T=04>chapter iv</E> – Miscellaneous Agencies </SUBJECT>
<PG>425
</PG></CHAPTI></CFRTOC>
<DIV3 N=I NODE=1:1.0.1 TYPE=CHAPTER>
<HEAD> CHAPTER I – ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER</HEAD>
<DIV4 N=A NODE=1:1.0.1.1 TYPE=SUBCHAP>
<HEAD>SUBCHAPTER A – GENERAL
</HEAD>
<DIV5 N=1 NODE=1:1.0.1.1.1 TYPE=PART>
<HEAD>PART 1 – DEFINITIONS </HEAD>
<AUTH>
<HED>Authority:</HED><PSPACE>44 U.S.C. 1506; sec. 6, E.O. 10530, 19 FR 2709; 3 CFR, 1954-1958 Comp., p.189.
</PSPACE></AUTH>
<DIV8 N=§ 1.1 NODE=1:1.0.1.1.1.0.1.1 TYPE=SECTION>
<HEAD>§ 1.1 Definitions.</HEAD>
<P>As used in this chapter, unless the context requires otherwise – </P>
<P><I>Administrative Committee</I> means the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register established under section 1506 of title 44, United States Code; </P>
<P><I>Agency</I> means each authority, whether or not within or subject to review by another agency, of the United States, other than the Congress, the courts, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories and possessions of the United States; </P>
<P><I>Document</I> includes any Presidential proclamation or Executive order, and any rule, regulation, order, certificate, code of fair competition, license, notice, or similar instrument issued, prescribed, or promulgated by an agency; </P>
<P><I>Document having general applicability and legal effect</I> means any document issued under proper authority prescribing a penalty or course of conduct, conferring a right, privilege, authority, or immunity, or imposing an obligation, and relevant or applicable to the general public, members of a class, or persons in a locality, as distinguished from named individuals or organizations; and </P>
<P><I>Filing</I> means making a document available for public inspection at the Office of the Federal Register during official business hours. A document is filed only after it has been received, processed and assigned a publication date according to the schedule in part 17 of this chapter.</P>
<P><I>Regulation</I> and <I>rule</I> have the same meaning. </P>
<CITA TYPE=N>[37 FR 23603, Nov. 4, 1972, as amended at 50 FR 12466, Mar. 28, 1985]
</CITA>
</DIV8>
</DIV5>
</DIV1>
</ECFRBRWS>
</BODY>
</TEXT>
</DLPSTEXTCLASS>

The text of the regulations are enclosed within tags that provide some context for what you’re looking at, have meaning for how it should be displayed or provide additional metadata that may be useful to the enrichment process.

As a first step, we consulted the user guide to see if there was any information on how to indent the text. There was something! On page 13, was this snippet of XML (Figure 1) with the enumeration indicators highlighted. The next page had a suggestion for how that could be displayed (Figure 2).

Figure 1: 5 CFR 151.101 in XML format

Figure 2: Presentation suggested by the Government Print Office for 5 CFR 151.101

Obvious to us and as indicated by the user guide itself, there was no way to achieve this display given just the information from the markup. A good place to look for extra information was within the CFR itself.

We found what we were looking for in Title 1, Section 21.11, which is about how the CFR enumerators are organized, or more accurately, are supposed to be organized. Of particular interest was the hierarchy of paragraphs given by subsection 21.11(h):

(h) Paragraphs, which are designated as follows:
level 1(a), (b), (c), etc.
level 2(1), (2), (3), etc.
level 3(i), (ii), (iii), etc.
level 4(A), (B), (C), etc.
level 5(1), (2), (3), etc.
level 6(i), (ii), (iii), etc.

In our first iteration of indentation, we added attributes to each paragraph defining a depth of indentation corresponding to the 6 levels above. Section 151.101 of Title 5, the example in the user guide pages above, looked lovely. But, (you knew it would not be that simple, right?) this implementation worked fine for only about 60% of the random selection of sections we tested it on.

Where the algorithm did not work, the main reason for failure was the presence of multiple enumerators within a single paragraph. In other words, each enumerator should have its own paragraph but not all paragraphs were marked as such.

Snippet 2: XML from 9 CFR 2.1
==============================================
<p>(a)(1) Any person operating or intending to operate as a dealer, exhibitor, or operator of an auction sale, except persons who are exempted from the licensing requirements under paragraph (a)(3) of this section, must have a valid license. A person must be 18 years of age or older to obtain a license. A person seeking a license shall apply on a form which will be furnished by the AC Regional Director in the State in which that person operates or intends to operate. The applicant shall provide the information requested on the application form, including a valid mailing address through which the licensee or applicant can be reached at all times, and a valid premises address where animals, animal facilities, equipment, and records may be inspected for compliance. The applicant shall file the completed application form with the AC Regional Director. </p>

In the snippet above, we have the case where there are 2 enumerators at the beginning of the paragraph. Since our algorithm assumed one enumerator per paragraph, it would only find (a) but not (1). We fixed that in the second iteration.

In our third iteration, we went after more embedded enumerators (see snippet 3 below) by creating a category for these previously untagged enumerators. We named them, nested paragraphs, and tagged them as such.

Snippet 3: XML from 8 CFR 103.3
==============================================
<p>(a) <i>Denials and appeals</i> – (1) <i>General</i> – (i) <i>Denial of application or petition.</i> When a Service officer denies an application or petition filed under § 103.2 of this part, the officer shall explain in writing the specific reasons for denial. If Form I-292 (a denial form including notification of the right of appeal) is used to notify the applicant or petitioner, the duplicate of Form I-292 constitutes the denial order.</p>

In the last snippet, the paragraph has 3 enumerators, (a), (1), and (i). We’ve developed a library of patterns that our algorithm uses to find them all. In title 26 alone, we find and tag 13,563 nested paragraphs!

So, we now have a pretty nice indentation feature, that while not completely finished, is already an improvement over what we were able to do before for the CFR. See 8 CFR 103.3 (a)(1)(iii)(A) and its corresponding eCFR version for an example of this.

We’re putting it on the back burner for now but there is more to come for indentation. For instance, we know from extensive study of the markup that there are actually 8 levels of nesting to be had, not 6. And, we have to provide special handling for sections that do not follow the numbering scheme in 1 CFR 21.11.

We’re grateful for our beta testers and readers. If you come across places where our current indentation scheme does not work, please let us know. In the interim, we’ll be devoting some brain cycles to adding cross references and other links to the eCFR.

Quoting Tom, LII director, who was channeling Frank Wagner, the longest serving Reporter of Decisions for the US Supreme Court,

“The work of a legal publisher is an exercise in serial nitpicking.”

No quibbles with that. I’ve been indulging in some nitpicking. Until this morning, this is what a portion of 26 CFR 1.263A-3 looked like on the eCFR tab:

Enumerator and its enclosing braces are not properly bolded.

Note how the enumerators 1, i, ii, 2, and their enclosing braces are not properly bolded. Not good! Since I am the sort that deems suspicious, anyone who posts a Craigslist advertisement with grammatical errors, I can see why someone would take issue with a publisher improperly rendering the bolding on a piece of text. So, it’s fixed.

Now, since I am also basking in the euphoria induced by fixing this presentation problem, I will not bore anyone with the details of negative look-ahead, greedy, non-greedy, capturing, and non-capturing pattern matching with regular expressions in python, while carrying my laptop, uphill, both ways to and from my office, ….