{"id":4015,"date":"2017-11-22T08:09:08","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T13:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/?p=4015"},"modified":"2017-11-22T08:09:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T13:09:08","slug":"25-for-25-city-miles-jazz-and-beacons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2017\/11\/22\/25-for-25-city-miles-jazz-and-beacons\/","title":{"rendered":"25 for 25: City Miles, Jazz, and Beacons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you polled the team at Fastcase about our influencers \u2013 the people who we look up to the most \u2013 there would be many companies on our team\u2019s lists, but the first on everyone\u2019s list would be Cornell\u2019s Legal Information Institute. \u00a0For its creative solutions, free law ethos, and its longevity, the LII is an inspiration not just for our team, but for so many others around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

The LII turned 25 years old in 2017, and anyone who has worked in the software world can tell you, creating software for a big audience is demanding. \u00a0But to stay at the forefront, to innovate and dare the way the LII team has over a quarter century, well, those are all city miles, my friends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Most software companies started in 1992 are long gone. \u00a0Of the few that remain, most have fallen by the wayside, as their founding teams exhausted or quit, unable to keep up with the relentless demands of thesoftware world. \u00a0Designing for multiple Web browsers, plugins that work until they don\u2019t, updating to new tech stacks, recreating everything in new hardware stacks, supporting high-volume Web traffic without a venture-backed budget, training new generations of law students each year \u2013 you get the picture. \u00a0\u00a0The challenges of running the LII are not insignificant.<\/span><\/p>\n

But to the world, the site is effortless. \u00a0Beautiful, modern renderings of the law, continuously updated both as to form and substance. \u00a0The LII crew has stood the test of time, not by chasing every passing fad (of which there have been many in 25 years), but by simply being the best at what they do. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cornell\u2019s Legal Information Institute is an amazing show that has run daily for 25 years. \u00a0There\u2019s no way that Director and co-founder Tom Bruce could have known that his background as a production manager for an opera company and as a jazz tour lighting designer would have prepared him to create a show like the LII. \u00a0He, and his successors, are managing a gifted group of artists, all performing in public for a quarter century.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the LII\u2019s influence extends globally. \u00a0The Legal Information Institute is a go-to source for American law, from Wall Street to global capitals, and from the headlines to mom-and-pop shops trying to understand the law. \u00a0\u00a0Over 25 years, the LII has become a proving ground for some of the most creative minds in legal tech, and the diaspora of LII alumni have brought its energy to law firms, corporate legal departments, legal publishers, and legal technology companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Co-founder Peter Martin\u2019s influential scholarship <\/a>and work has changed the way we think about legal information. \u00a0A dozen states have changed the way they publish law, creating media-neutral citations to make judicial opinions citeable independent of the printed book. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, the LII has inspired more than 20 Legal Information Institutes around the world \u2013 it has become the new model for how nations should publish their laws. \u00a0Free, open, and public is the de facto standard. \u00a0It didn\u2019t have to be this way, but inspired by the team at Cornell, the world is publishing law the LII way. \u00a0Indeed, the LII is our team\u2019s most prominent influencer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The LII\u2019s 25-year production has created a beautiful, enduring way of accessing the law, inspired generations of law students and engineers, changed the way we cite the law, and created a lasting reputation for Cornell Law School as an innovator in legal technology and publishing. \u00a0Tom Bruce — and now Sara Frug<\/a> and Craig Newton<\/a> — may not be lighting shows for jazz troupes, but their work at Cornell has been a shining light for the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed Walters is the CEO of <\/span><\/i>Fastcase<\/span><\/i><\/a>. \u00a0He teaches The Law of Robots at Georgetown University and at Cornell Tech.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you polled the team at Fastcase about our influencers \u2013 the people who we look up to the most \u2013 there would be many companies on our team\u2019s lists, but the first on everyone\u2019s list would be Cornell\u2019s Legal Information Institute. \u00a0For its creative solutions, free law ethos, and its longevity, the LII is […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5012],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4018,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015\/revisions\/4018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}