{"id":4023,"date":"2017-12-08T11:18:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T16:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/?p=4023"},"modified":"2025-01-31T09:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T14:19:01","slug":"25-for-25-so-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2017\/12\/08\/25-for-25-so-whats-next\/","title":{"rendered":"25 for 25: So What(‘s Next)?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>The purpose of this \u201c25 for 25\u201d series has been to celebrate 25 years of the Legal Information Institute, to recount its greatest achievements, and to place its accomplishments large and small in the greater context to which they belong. \u00a0\u00a0That was overdue and fun to read and, I assure you, quite flattering for all us. \u00a0(<\/span>Ed Walters<\/span><\/a>, we\u2019re still blushing.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Elmer Masters<\/span><\/a> ended the most recent of these posts by hoping to write about our leadership when another two-and-a-half decades have passed. \u00a0\u00a0I decided to wait two-and-a-half days instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back when<\/span> I practiced law for a living<\/span><\/a>, a question I learned to ask myself while writing was, \u201cSo what?\u201d\u2014or, to phrase it<\/span> more politely<\/span><\/a>, \u201cWhy am I telling you this?\u201d or \u201cWhy does this matter?\u2019 \u00a0Maybe I learned it <\/span>as an English major<\/span><\/a> long before that. \u00a0Anyway, it\u2019s a thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a thing I brought with me and have used repeatedly over the<\/span> last four-plus years I\u2019ve been Associate Director-ing<\/span><\/a> here at the LII. \u00a0Whether it\u2019s allocating scarce resources or <\/span>writing a newsletter article<\/span><\/a>, I have to ask myself \u201cso what\u201d all the time. \u00a0I say it out loud in meetings probably far too often. <\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the guest bloggers who\u2019ve sung our praises have answered the \u201cso what\u201d question about our impact and our value\u2014our legacy, if you will. \u00a0But a legacy is what\u2019s left at the <\/span>end<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>we are just getting started.<\/i><\/b> \u00a0\u00a0Here are just a few brief insights into the things on our mind as we look at we are right now and where we might be headed:<\/span><\/p>\n

The LII as a big tent<\/span><\/p>\n

We now do<\/span> this<\/span><\/a>, and<\/span> this<\/span><\/a>, and<\/span> this<\/span><\/a>, and even <\/span>this<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because we were asked to. \u00a0In each case, somebody\u2014respectively, Jerry Goldman, Peter Martin, the (now-defunct) Avon Center, and (the also now-defunct) Sunlight Labs\u2014 built something <\/span>really cool<\/span><\/i> and then asked us to care for it and feed it and put a roof over its head. \u00a0\u00a0And we did! \u00a0\u00a0You\u2019ve read a lot in this space over the last eleven months about how the LII has served as a beacon for others in the free law movement\u2014many have steered by that beacon and, as it turns out, some have steered <\/span>toward<\/span><\/i> it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what?<\/span><\/i> \u00a0<\/span><\/i>We don\u2019t expect that phenomenon to end abruptly or soon. \u00a0There will be more projects to adopt from their creators and to adapt to our purpose. \u00a0Though the tent is big, it\u2019s likely to get crowded. \u00a0Whether these additions show up as new features on our site or as entirely new sites, in each case anything we do will advance our mission of making law easier to find and understand. \u00a0But each new project we adopt will come with its own demands, be they technical, administrative, managerial, or economic. \u00a0Like a puppy under the Christmas tree, these are gifts that <\/span>eat<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0We\u2019ll need to innovate in new ways that are just as likely to require business acumen as technical or legal skills.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students, students, students<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>First, it\u2019s important to note that we work with computer science and information science students, as well as law students. \u00a0But when it comes to creating new secondary content, my focus is usually on the law students. <\/span><\/p>\n

And we hire <\/span>a lot<\/span><\/i> of law students. \u00a0In fact, in our own unofficial estimation we are the largest single employer of Cornell Law students each year. \u00a0We have in excess of 40 law students on the books right now working on the<\/span> Supreme Court Bulletin Previews<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> Wex<\/span><\/a>, and even over at<\/span> Oyez<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0On the Oyez website, we also employ students at the institution from which we adopted it, the Chicago-Kent School of Law. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what?<\/span><\/i> \u00a0That we were able to navigate the administrative and managerial challenges of hiring and supervising law students from another institution bodes well for our future. \u00a0Though it\u2019s my alma mater as well as my employer, I\u2019ve never believed that Cornell Law School holds a monopoly on bright, energetic, and enthusiastic law students. \u00a0Knowing that we can employ qualified and capable student labor from anywhere whenever our reach exceeds our grasp allows us to reach farther and grasp for more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Audience<\/span><\/p>\n

Increasingly, our<\/span> busiest days<\/span><\/a> are fueled not only by additional traffic coming from search engines but also from links contained in social media posts. \u00a0These days, the difference between a day of heavy traffic day and a day of <\/span>very heavy <\/span><\/i>traffic is usually the number of visitors arriving via links from Twitter and Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what<\/span><\/i>? <\/span><\/i>\u00a0One of the reasons we\u2019re such a common source for hyperlinks in social media is because folks find us on a search engine when they want primary reference material to help make their point. \u00a0While this phenomenon currently accounts for a small (but growing) source of traffic, aren\u2019t these <\/span>exactly<\/span><\/i> the kind of users we should be particularly interested in? \u00a0Say what you will about social media, but that\u2019s where debate is happening. \u00a0That people are pointing to the US Code, the CFR, the Constitution, or whatever else they find on our site to justify their stance on the issues of the day is <\/span>a very good thing<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

What happens when a social media user\u2019s friends or followers click on that posted link? \u00a0We <\/span>know <\/span><\/i>that these visitors behave differently from users arriving via their own internet search or from a link in a<\/span> news article<\/span><\/a> or another<\/span> website<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0They don\u2019t stay nearly as long, they view fewer pages, and they are for more likely to \u201cbounce\u201d from the site without interacting with it at all. \u00a0\u00a0How do we give them the context they need to place that one little piece of the law they\u2019re looking at into the bigger statutory or regulatory framework that is required to <\/span>understand<\/span><\/i> it<\/span>? \u00a0On a more pragmatic level, how do we give them a page they can read and digest on their <\/span>phone<\/span><\/i>? \u00a0(We get more traffic from Facebook Mobile than Facebook.) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

None of these challenges are 25 years away. \u00a0With technology, the operative clich\u00e9 is \u201cthe future is now.\u201d \u00a0In terms of the challenges we face, there\u2019s a lot of truth to that. \u00a0\u00a0So, thanks for spending the time over the last 11 months helping us look back on our success and for sticking around as we look forward to how we can continue to be the flagship for open access to the law for decades to come. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Craig Newton is the LII\u2019s Associate Director for Content Development<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The purpose of this \u201c25 for 25\u201d series has been to celebrate 25 years of the Legal Information Institute, to recount its greatest achievements, and to place its accomplishments large and small in the greater context to which they belong. \u00a0\u00a0That was overdue and fun to read and, I assure you, quite flattering for all […]<\/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-4023","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\/4023","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=4023"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4059,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4023\/revisions\/4059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}