{"id":4020,"date":"2017-12-05T14:20:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/?p=4020"},"modified":"2025-01-31T09:17:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T14:17:53","slug":"you-with-the-law-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2017\/12\/05\/you-with-the-law-show\/","title":{"rendered":"You with the law show?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>by Elmer Masters<\/p>\n

The Legal Information Institute is 25 years old. For a quarter of a
\ncentury the organization built by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce at
\nCornell has been a beacon for those interested in free and open access
\nto the law. The LII website provides unparalleled access to decisions
\nof the Supreme Court of the United States, including oral arguments
\nvia Oyez!, the United States Code, and the Code of Federal
\nRegulations. LII manages several student led publications at Cornell
\nthat provide valuable analysis of judicial proceedings of the Supreme
\nCourt and the NY Court of Appeals. Its work influences policy on open
\naccess to federal legal information.<\/p>\n

But if you’re reading this, you probably already know that. You
\nprobably also know that the work of the LII has provided a blueprint
\nfor legal information institutes around the world as they work to
\nprovide their citizens free and open access to the legal information
\nthat is so key to creating an informed citizenry and fostering
\ndemocracy. Yet here in the United States once we step away from the
\nwork of the LII we quickly wander into a vast wasteland of legal
\ninformation dominated by commercial vendors, arcane court,
\nlegislative, and administrative systems, and questionable copyright
\nclaims. While the LII has provided a workable model for publishing
\nlegal information it hasn’t been adopted by the courts, legislatures,
\nand administrative bodies of this country.<\/p>\n

As citizens of the US we are told that ignorance of the law is no
\nexcuse.\u00a0 We are expected to make informed decisions regarding a wide
\nrange of issues when we vote. We are required to comply with an ever
\ngrowing number of rules and regulations. But we do not have free and
\nopen access to the law, to the statutes, the regulations, the judicial
\nopinions that we are expected to follow in our day to day lives.<\/p>\n

I know this is a broad statement, but I also know, sitting here in
\nWoodstock GA, it’s a whole easier for me to find out what order I
\nshould watch the Fast & Furious movies in (hint: not the order they
\nwere released) than what rules apply if I want to raise some chickens
\nin my backyard. I simply cannot think of any reason why that is a good
\nthing. The simple truth is that the law just isn’t as readily
\navailable as some other information. And that truth is a serious
\nshortcoming in this country. We have the models provided by the LII,
\nwhy don’t we build on it?<\/p>\n

It isn’t just in the legal information space that the Legal
\nInformation Institute has provided models that we don’t follow. Many
\nmay not realize that in the early years the LII had a significant role
\nin legal education. Peter Martin was a pioneer in bringing distance
\neducation to US law schools and in using technology in the law school
\nclassroom. LII published or co-published course and other materials
\nfor law schools and developed a digital archive system for faculty
\nscholarship. As with legal information, LII’s work in legal education
\nprovided models for distance education, in-class technology, and
\ndigital archives that were years ahead of their time.<\/p>\n

Like its legal system, legal education in the US is fairly unique.
\nIt’s steeped in tradition and slow to change. Law is taught now pretty
\nmuch as it was a century ago. There is little variation in curriculum
\nfrom school to school. With swift changes to law practice driven by
\ntechnological changes and economic shifts legal education is in
\ncrisis. Law schools are suffering from dropping enrollments, falling
\nbar passage rates, and a soft job market. Many schools are finally
\ntaking a look at distance education and classroom technology as ways
\nto improve and differentiate their curriculum. Legal education could
\ndo worse than to look back at the work LII did 15 – 20 years ago in
\ndistance education and classroom technology.<\/p>\n

Over the past 25 years the LII has provided leadership in legal
\ninformation and legal education. I’m looking forward to writing about
\n50 years of leadership.<\/p>\n

Elmer Masters <\/a>is the Director of Technology\u00a0for the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), a consortium for the development of novel methods of legal instruction that has most US law schools as members.\u00a0 He is a former roadie.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elmer Masters The Legal Information Institute is 25 years old. For a quarter of a century the organization built by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce at Cornell has been a beacon for those interested in free and open access to the law. The LII website provides unparalleled access to decisions of the Supreme Court […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5012],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25-for-25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=4020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4052,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions\/4052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}