It's a Small World After All - Law and Legal Information in 21st Century

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It’s a Small World After All…

Sarah Glassmeyer @sglassmeyer

sarahglassmeyer.com

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An American librarian that works for a non-profit?

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What do we when we zoom out?

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Will MOOCs replace traditional legal education?

The technological changes affecting legal practice?

The Access to Justice crisis?

The legal employment and law school bubbles?

It’s a world of laughter…

A world of tears…

It’s a world of hopes…

and a world of fears…

It’s a small world after

all!

Saving Mr. Banks

There are many strange people and phenomena in the

world, but only Mary Poppins is

familiar with them all.

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http://minifigures.lego.com/en-us/bios/librarian.aspx

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Liberty Square

• The Courts• The Legislatures• Regulatory Agencies• Law making bodies

Main Street, USA

Main Street, USA

High Street, UK•Great majority of lawyers•Citizens with regular, basic transactional needs• E.g. Wills, basic business Ks

•Huge disconnect between the two• 80% need not being met

Tomorrow Land•SusskindLand• Not just tech

•NewLaw• Bringing new

techniques/technologies into existing practice • Keyword: Adaption• SeyfarthShaw’s Lean and Project

Management• Inksters’ Pop-Up Lawyers • Distance Education

Tomorrow Land•AltLaw• New practice areas• New players, tools, mechanisms• Keywords: creation, new• Shake – phone app to make

contracts• Collateral Consequences Calculator

from Columbia Law• LegalZoom / Form Automation • MOOCs – Massive Open Online

Courses

Tomorrow Land•Hackers• Punk aesthetic• Homegrown tools to serve themselves/communities• Keyword: DIY• Options: • EduPunk• LibPunk• LexPunk?

Fantasy Land•Our regulatory bodies• Law Societies• Bar Associations • University consortiums• Solicitor’s Regulatory Agency/Bar

Standards Board

• Funders• Fairy Godmother or Wicked Stepmother?• Education has more than one

Frontier Land

• Legal Aid / Public Defenders / Self-Represented• ER/A&E of legal help• Where Access to Justice Issues go to

live • …or go to die? •Hardships – Financial, Technological, Infrastructure

• Justice Desserts

Adventure Land• The legal academe

• Yes, you.• Translates law, provides

context• Incredible freedom to “think

big” via scholarship• How valuable is scholarship

really?

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Law students should be taught

to program computers!

TOMORROW LAND

Obviously you’ve never sat in a faculty meeting! And where

do we fit it in to existing curriculum?

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/119987-have-yourself-lego-minifig-red-nose-day#

ADVENTURE LAND

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Can you change the rules so we can use

technology to increase Access to

Justice?

FRONTIER LAND

But what about the quality of the work?

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FANTASY LAND

You should publish law in a way so that people can use and

read it for free and not have to pay private companies!

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TOMORROW LAND

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LOL, WUT?

No.

LIBERTY SQUARE

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We just need some basic legal advice and help

with some transactional forms.

I can’t afford to help you.

Sorry!

HIGH STREET, U.K.

• Keyword: Content•Data• Unprocessed facts• Metadata• Law, when created, is data

• Information• Data put into context• Codifications, Annual Publishing

• Knowledge• Applied Information• Scholarship, annotations

Raw Material

DataInformation

Knowledge

Area CreatesConsume

s

Courts Raw Law, Rules Treatises, Annotations, Organized Law

High StreetTreatises, Annotations, Organized Law, Briefs,

case law

Treatises, Annotations, Organized Law, Raw Law,

Educational Materials

AltLaw/New Law/Hackers

Algorithms, processes, annotations

Treatises, Annotations, Organized Law, Raw

Law

AcademeTreatises, Annotations,

scholarship, educational materials

Treatises, Annotations, Organized Law,

educational materials

Governing Bodies

Treatises, Annotations, scholarship

Treatises, Annotations, Organized Law

Legal Aid/Public Defender/SRL

Briefs, case lawTreatises, Annotations, Organized Law, Raw

Law

Transportation•Keyword: Containers•Publishers• Government• Commercial (Thomson, Wolters, Lexis)• Non-Profit (LIIs)

•Format• Print vs. Electronic

Transportation•Vessel• Book / Article• CD-ROM / Internet

•Software• Proprietary• Cost• Compatibility

•Copyright

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Access to Information is a

human right.

Access to Information is

Access to Justice.

Justice and human rights issues are the business of everyone in Law

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Medium Data Information Knowledge

Law Raw Law

Codes, chronological

order arrangements

Annotations, Indexes

Scholarship Data set Organization – census tables Articles, books

Music Music note e.g. Eb6 Key e.g. G Major

Melody – Reflection (from

Mulan)

Visual Art Color, format

Method e.g. Pointillism ; color e.g. International

Klein Blue

"A Sunday Afternoon on the

Island of La Grande Jatte"

Education Questions, Readings

Problem Set, Syllabi

Casebook/ textbook

Story Archetype, style Moral, theme, fairy tale

Disney’s Cinderella

Most information and its methods of

dissemination are locked up – format, copyright, paywalls.

Most information has already been paid for several

times over.

Indexed and placed in electronic database

Published in Journal

Peer Review

Law journal article written

(School pays faculty salary)

(School pays faculty salary)

(School pays for subscription)

(School pays for subscription)

Libraries have traditionally been

the fail safe for information access.

The goal posts keep getting moved or

game is other wise rigged.

Corporate interests extend copyright

protections far beyond original contemplations

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Most of Disney’s early work based on public

domain tales.

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Publishers special treatment of digital materials prevents

ownership and other traditional rights and uses.

http://laughingsquid.com/lego-minifig-babies/

Orphan works represent 50% all digitized works and therefore are closed.

Technology has rendered much

of the added value of publishers

unnecessary.

The only way to guarantee Access to

Information is via Open Source and

Open Access.

•No monetary cost only part•Different levels• Prevent Remix, Commercial Uses, etc

• Creator can maintain ownership–Open via licenses like CC

• Access just as important–Containers in “bad” format–Should be obvious – no need to ask!

What is Open?

• Open Access • Content

• Open Source • Container

• Open Education and Open Educational Resources • Combination of Content and Container• Copyright and accessibility

• Open Law • Combination of Content and Container• Copyright and accessibility

What is Open?

Open Source and Open Access will

help or solve many problems facing the

legal world.

Creation of tools to increase productivity for lawyers and allow public to navigate legal world.

Open Legal Data:

Let public access the law that governs them and make decisions without an attorney.

Creation of open legal knowledge products?

Lower practice costs.• Last year Thomson/Reuters had $1,400,000,000

revenue from firms for basic legal research

Open Legal Information

Open Source ToolsProprietary software keeps people from owning electronic information

Also requires dependence on company

Allows legal start ups to live on after failure.

Open Education and OER

Removes barriers to education – distance, price, admissions

OE & OER benefits educators and students – formal and informal

No more reinventing wheel and low cost

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• Publish your scholarship in OA journal OR• Self-Archive• Retain your copyright

• Encourage academe creation of FOSS software•Use OS tools • Advocate to governments•Donate to LIIs/FOSS

What Can I Do?

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