#Hackingthelaw

OpenLaws.euProf. Chris Marsden

#ODIFridays

20 March 2015

Law is difficult and boring –

we have better things to do

But law matters – to all of us

We can open access to law

Openlaws.eu DG Just project

UK, Netherlands and Austria

top 3 EU: OKFN legislation rankings

open access to law in Europe

legislation, case law and commentary

Not just legislation.gov.uk

social network for lawyers, students and

interested citizens.

What can opening access to

law achieve?

better and wider legal knowledge,

which means a “better informed citizenry”

1. on the legal community,

2. in combination with open data

entrepreneurs.

1. Citizens understand their rights

How to secure those rights, and costs of access to justice.

Helps identify better the manner in which the law is applied in courts,

feedback loop can help us understand how to draft and enforce laws more effectively better litigation,

more mediation,

better consumer contracts,

lower contract costs,

better spread of liabilities, better protection for those whose rights are

abused.

2. Open access to law alongside

other open databases.

If we find out that

people are not using the law effectively

to enforce their rights and seek justice,

that can help us identify parts of our social

and economic environment

where we might have put rights and

responsibilities in the wrong place.

Example: if no-one is found effectively

liable for computer security breaches

due to defective products we might explore the insurance and criminal

law implications for cybercrime

also computers owners & software authors

Designing new protocols, practices, laws?

Might result in more trusted online environment

That’s one small example.

Openlaws release our first

code today: March 20 at a

hackathon in Salzburg

We have completed our

UK, EU and Netherlands

case studies

Expanding open innovation to law

Introducing mass-customization to law

Proposing a comprehensive European

“Big Open Legal Data” (BOLD) Vision 2020 for incremental implementation,

built on top of existing EU and national systems and content

(e.g. EUR-Lex, e-Justice System, e-Codex).

Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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Developing BOLD ICT PlatformPromote

open data,

open access publications, and

open standards

Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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Developing big online legal data

Free Access to Law movement (FALM) online case law via BAILII in the UK

Legal Information Institutes (AustLII, Cornell etc.)

#GoodLaw online statutes expanded rapidly, crowdsourcing ideas for #goodlaw

Online legal education and research BILETA since 1985

Electronic Law Journals project at Warwick

EJLT – now Script-ed + IJoC at USC many US law journals

Journal of Open Access to Law (JOAL) est. 2014!

publishing books via Creative Commons: Marsden 2010Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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Ministry of Justice ready for

(r)evolution?

#Goodlaw

radical crowd-sourced legislative approach

Open Data

Very fashionable amongst G7 countries etc.

Implementation more patchy than general

UK: BAILII, ICLR, Supreme Court reforms;

But we really need a pan-European

approach

Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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Why not build a

smartphone app for lawyers? Already done using

open case law, statute,

articles

Where? Austria RIS:App

Why not here? Why not

everywhere?

Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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Team – note Andres Guadamuz

CC licence expertInstitution Name

U.Amsterdam Prof. Radboud G.F. Winkels

Prof. Mireille van Eechoud LAPSI2.0

Sussex Prof. Chris Marsden

Dr Andres Guadamuz CC4.0

London School ofEconomics

Dr. Paolo Dini

Dr. Shenja van der Graaf BXL

Dr. Antonella Passani ROMA

ALPENITE -developers

Giulio Marcon

Gianluigi Alberici

SUAS Prof. Thomas Heistracher

DI (FH) Thomas Lampoltshammer

BYWASS Dr. Clemens Wass, MBL, MBA

Chris Marsden (Sussex)

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c.marsden

@sussex.ac.uk

@openlaws

@ChrisTMarsden

openlaws.eu