Justia Law, Technology and Legal Marketing Blog

Oregon decides not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes

Hi Friends,

Oregon's Legislative Counsel Committee had a meeting this morning to discuss the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes. After taking legal counsel from Dexter Johnson, talking with Karl Olson, Carl Malamud, three Oregon citizens and myself, they unanimously voted to not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes. This is great!!!

Carl Malamud presents Oregon Senate President Courtney the "Seal of Approval"

Thanks to Dexter and the Committee!!!!

Update: Carl Malamud has put online the Oregon hearing testimony and videos on Public.Resource.org.

Peace,

Tim

WWU, Seattle, Vancouver Visit 2008

Hi Friends,

Dan, Cicely and I flew over Oregon and headed up to LexBlog Country in the great Northwest. We were there to do some interviewing of computer folks... but we also had some fun (Seattle/As game, Vancouver and more :).

Dan and Cicely ran the booth at Western Washington University. We met a lot of great people.

Then it was off to Seattle to meet Kevin O'Keefe at the LexBlog offices to talk blogs and to see a baseball game.

Then off to beautiful Vancouver for fun...

... and a visit the UBC Computer Science Department.

more on copyright and codes later this week...

Peace,

Tim

:: Crystal River, Mudcrutch by Mudcrutch

Cease, Desist & Resist - Oregon's Copyright Claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes

Hi Friends,

Last week, the State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee sent Justia a notice of copyright infringement and demand to cease and desist. In its letter, Dexter Johnson, the Legislative Counsel, asked us to remove a copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes stored on our servers (or pay a licensing fee) by April 30, 2008. The letter claimed copyright on many parts of the Oregon Revised Statutes:

[T]he Committee ... claim[s] a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables the index and annotations and such other incidents as are work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.

Now, the letter is more detailed than the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes website:

The Legislative Counsel Committee claims copyright protection in those parts of Oregon Revised Statutes that are legally subject to copyright protection.

My take after reading the above claim on their website was that the State of Oregon was claiming a copyright to the annotation section and not the code itself. Accordingly, our copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes did not include the annotations. Needless to say Oregon's copyright claim on the code itself was a surprise (understatement).

As requested in the letter, I called Oregon's Sean Brennan the same Friday and Sean explained their position, reinforced the copyright claims in Dexter Johnson's letter and said he would get us some licensing information (which is $30,000 for 2 years). He also said that Oregon had been talking with other states about how to raise licensing revenue for their codes. That was somewhat disturbing, as we want states to open up their public laws and regulations.

After the call with Sean, I talked with and sent a copy of the letter to Carl Malamud, who being a former Oregon fire fighter, has a special affection for the state of Oregon. Carl checked out the site, and wrote some letters to Dexter Johnson seeking clarification of their copyright claims.

Thursday, we (Carl Malamud, Nolo's Stephen Elias and I) had a pleasant and constructive conversation with Dexter Johnson and his team. The Oregon folks are going to think through some different options. If Oregon comes up with a solution that promotes free and open access to the laws, then we will likely avoid litigation. If not, then we will likely have to ask the courts to determine whether state governments can prohibit others from downloading, reproducing or distributing the laws. I hope that given Oregon's public interest focus, the State will adopt an approach that promotes open access to laws instead of one that maximizes licensing fees. We should know more next week.

Some prominent legal bloggers have commented on Oregon's copyright claims. See Professor Tim Armstrong's post "Can States Copyright Their Statutes?" on Info/Law and William Patry's post "Oregon goes wacka wacka huna kuna" on the The Patry Copyright Blog and Sam Bayard's post "Oregon Claims Copyright in Its Statutes -- Well, Sort Of" on the Citizen Media Law Project Blog. We agree that public policy demands that state laws remain in the public domain. To otherwise permit the State of Oregon or any other governmental body to restrict access to the laws that govern all of us would make a mockery of the legal doctrine that all persons have presumed knowledge of the law. Fortunately, many courts have rightfully declined to recognize such copyright claims asserted by states and municipalities.

Peace,

Tim

:: Sugaree, Grateful Dead Download Series, Vol. 10 by Grateful Dead

* For those interested, we are working with folks from Public.Resource.Org, Cornell's Legal Information Institute, AltLaw, EFF, Creative Commons, Stanford & Cal, FastCase, as well as many other law schools, commercial organizations, courts, and government agencies on compiling a large archive of law that will be continuously updated and freely shared. Part of that is just getting the raw law, which includes cases, codes, and regulations. As we (quickly) move forward though, we will also have shared annotations and shared publishing tools. We will then want to have copies of the law along with secondary materials on thousands of servers. In addition to providing free access to all at many online locations, we want to provide the opportunity for each government institution, court, law school, nonprofit, company, and blogger to have their very own copy of the full corpus, as well as an easy way to keep it updated. It won't be easy, but it is doable. And it helps that we are working with folks from the government. Hopefully, we will soon be able to work with and include the State of Oregon. :)

US Legislative Histories Sold to Thomson-West by the GAO???

Hi Friends,

As public domain information hero Carl Malamud is working on getting case law online and into the public domain (we have helped a bit :). Carl, donors, and the Public.Resource.org team have done a lot and... more to come...

But in addition to case law, Carl has also been working to get other public legal documents online and into the public domain. These documents include the legislative histories of the laws. So this was interesting... it looks like Thomson-West has signed an exclusive agreement with the GAO to have these legislative histories on WestLaw.

From Carl note (and originally posted on Boing Boing...

The law librarians at GAO have compiled complete federal legislative histories from 1915 on. These are the definitive dossiers that track a bill through the hearing process and into law. If you want to divine the intent of Congress, this is where you go.

GAO cut a contract with Thomson West to have these documents scanned.

Thomson West claims they have exclusive access to these public documents and even go so far as to boast that you should purchase this exclusive "product" from West because the GAO law librarians (public employees!) have done all the work for you!

If you're interesting in tracking this issue, I've created a Scribd group that has all the documents we've obtained so far. Next step: we asked for a copy of every document scanned under the FOIA laws!"

Well I am sure the US Government will give copies over to Carl to put up for free, and then back to the GAO itself to host and Brewster and the Internet Archive and Google and Cornell and the other law schools put online and into the public domain for free.

Peace,

Tim

:: The More Things Change, Heartbreak Station by Cinderella

JDSupra Free User Generated Legal Document, Forms & Brief Library Open to All

Hi Friends,

JDSupra has officially launched and opened its site to the public today. The JDSupra site allows legal professionals to upload legal documents, memos, forms, filings and briefs and share them with the legal community. On the marketing front, lawyers and law firms can have their own detailed profile page that promotes their practice.

Many great organizations and firms have already started contributing documents, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Morrison & Foerster (my former lawyers at my previous company :) and many many others.

Justia is in the process of doing a major data upload of the higher quality research quality briefs and filings we have aggregated from Pacer for our featured case tracking service in Justia News). We are encouraging all of the law firms we work with to participate and share with JDSupra's law library.

By working together we can help build a great new legal research library. This is a very nice start of a new free research service! So check JDSupra out and share. It will only be getting better and better as more people participate!

Peace,

Tim

:: Blue Sky, Eat a Peach by The Allman Brothers Band

The Public Library of Law - the Largest Free US Case Law Database on the Internet from FastCase

Hi Friends,

The team at FastCase have announced the largest free online US case law database at The Public Library of Law at plol.org. The site is GREAT! The database of cases includes all of the Supreme Court cases and US Court of Appeals cases since 1950 (the same data FastCase recently presented to the Legal Commons project) AND US state case law since 1997 for all 50 states in nice standardized searchable, and usable html format for all states (not the random state by state format many other sites have collected the data in).

In addition to the case law, the The Public Library of Law also has online or links to the codes and statutes, constitutions and regulations of the Federal Government and all 50 US state governments.

The Public Library of Law is a beautiful site that works! Congrats FastCase!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: Shower the People, In the Pocket by James Taylor

Legal Commons - Free US Court of Appeals & US Supreme Court Case Law by way of Public.Resource.org and the Creative Commons!

Hi Friends,

Here comes the Legal Commons.

Carl Malamud and the team at Public.Resource.org with Larry Lessig and the Creative Commons gang got the FastCase deal done and the case law online. The cases include all of the Federal Court of Appeals decisions since 1950, and all of the US Supreme Court decisions.

You can obtain a copy of all of the cases at Public.Resource.org case archive. Public.Resource.org has tar balls for easy downloading of the complete data sets. There is still some fixing of the cases going on, and the community will be working to get the internal page numbering for the cases (among other features). We did an initial conversion of the Federal Court of Appeals cases on Justia with some cross linking to other cases etc.... We and many others will be fixing these up, as well as sending changes and issues to Public.Resource.org where the master copy will be provided for free to all.

Carl is inviting developers to work together to provide stronger and more transparent "operating system" for all.

Developers and interested members of the public are invited to join our open discussion group which will evaluate the format of this public domain data. These cases and codes are America’s operating system and for the ﬁrst time Americans can use them with freedom.

The cases will also be up on AltLaw and PreCYdent soon (if not already) and... many many other places :)

Ed Walters CEO of FastCase worked with Carl to really make this happen. The Legal Commons financial support for these datasets came from donars including David Boies, the Elbaz Family Foundation, John Gilmore and the Omidyar Network.

When did Carl start focusing on free law?... Not too bad.

Now on to the state cases, codes and regs (year by year), some legislation updates, annotations and presto free legal stuff for everyone everywhere. LegalCommons.

Public.Resource.org announcement
Creative Commons Blog Post (Mike Linksvayer)

Peace,

Tim

:: American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Free Case Law from PreCYdent.com

Hi Friends,

More free case law has come online. PreCYdent has added 300,000 Federal cases to their database at http://www.PreCYdent.com. They have built in some nice community tools for commenting and rating the cases. And they have a new search engine that is focused on the link structure of cases. Bob Ambrogi's initial take was that it is pretty good. They are calling their site a "true Alpha" and they are taking comments from all interested parties to improve it. I will test it out over the weekend before the Superbowl :).

It will all be and continue to be free. PreCYdent will support the company with advertising sales.

There is also a nice interview with PreCYdent's Thomas A. Smith on the Law Librarian Blog.

In the interview Tom said that PreCYdent has all of the US Supreme Court cases and US Court of Appeals cases back to the 1950s and that they plan to soon have state cases going back 10 years or more from all 50 states, and ultimately all state and federal cases back to the beginning, as well as statutory and administrative materials.

The PreCYdent site is really nice. Check it out! Congrats to the PreCYdent team!!!

Peace,

Tim

Source: Sophisticated Search for Public Domain Law from Bob Ambrogi's LawSites Blog.

:: Going to California, Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin

U.S. Supreme Court Photos

I found this photo of the U.S. Supreme Court on flickr, the photo-sharing website owned by Yahoo!. Sure, there are a lot of photos on flickr. However, this photo was uploaded by the Library of Congress. Is this the federal government's entrée into social networking? What next? Barack, Hillary, John, Mitt and Mike "friending" us on Facebook? ;-) In all seriousness, this is a great step towards increasing the accessibility of our government resources. I find it so much easier to find photos on flickr than using the boolean search on the Library of Congress website. And, if you look very closely, you'll only see 48 stars on the U.S. flag.

FCC Announces Accepted Applications for 700 MHz Band Auction

FCC 700 MHz Band Auction
Auction ID: 73
Accepted Applications
(Sorted by Applicant)
Date of Report: 12/18/2007 01:13 PM ET
The following applicants have an Initial filing phase status of "Accepted."

FRN	Name	Bidding Credit Revenue Range
0002805596	Adams Telcom, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014061097	Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp.	0 - 15,000,000
0000021188	AlasConnect, Inc.
0016161788	Aristotle Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016927360	AWS Spectrum, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017118837	Bayou Internet, Inc.
0002477636	BEK Communications Cooperative	0 - 15,000,000
0003764727	Bend Cable Communications, LLC
0003766201	Blanca Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017147406	Blue Sky Cell, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0010698868	Bluegrass Wireless LLC
0017194473	Bresnan Communications, Inc.
0017181199	Broadband Wireless Unlimited, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0008394215	Budget Phone
0015024631	Cavalier Wireless, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001649508	Central Texas Telephone Investments, LP
0002532497	Chariton Valley Communication Corporation, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0003707775	Chester Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017191172	Clearcom, Inc.
0017146051	COLI Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0001711837	Command Connect, LLC
0017171950	Cricket Licensee 2007, LLC
0001700616	Cross Telephone Company, LLC
0003777919	CTC Telcom, Inc.
0017166422	Data-Max Wireless LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017118084	Delmarva Broadband LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001858760	Ellijay Telephone Company
0001754738	Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0004338489	Farmers Telephone Company, Inc.
0014955017	Fidelity Communications Company
0002480085	Forum Communications Company
0004600268	FTC Management Group, Inc.
0002388262	Glenwood Telephone Membership, Corporation	0 - 15,000,000
0002333839	Golden Belt Telephone Association, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017171182	Google Airwaves Inc.
0017184268	Grain Spectrum LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017176173	Great American Broadband, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016191827	GreenFly LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0002331601	H & B Communications, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0001886944	Horry Telephone Cooperative, Inc.
0009639923	Inland Cellular Telephone Company
0001523125	IT&E Overseas, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017169087	KeyOn Spectrum Holdings, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017164583	Kinex Networking Solutions, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0002212314	Kingdom Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0003548443	Kurian, Thomas K	0 - 15,000,000
0004334702	Lackawaxen Long Distance Company, Inc.
0017166240	Landover PCS Holdings, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0002576791	MAC Wireless, LLC
0015031065	Manti Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0004344776	Medicine Park Telephone Company, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0014993794	Midwest AWS Limited Partnership	0 - 15,000,000
0017195561	Miller, David	0 - 15,000,000
0011146479	Mt. Vernnon.Net Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0014999585	MTN3B Consortium	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0002886984	Mulberry Cooperative Telephone Company, Inc	0 - 15,000,000
0008209629	N.E. Colorado Wireless Technologies, Inc.
0012841458	Neptuno Media	0 - 15,000,000
0004337044	Northeast Missouri Rural Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0002388882	Northeast Nebraska Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014990436	Northern Iowa Communications Partners, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001704246	Panhandle Telecommunication Systems, Inc.
0002644953	Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc.
0017036799	PBP Bidco LLC
0005746508	PCS Partners, L.P.	0 - 15,000,000
0001887140	Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0003740040	Polar Communications Mutual Aid Corporation
0007024607	Public Service Wireless Services, Inc.
0003742384	Red River Rural Telephone Association, Inc.
0001886464	Sandhill Communications, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001551241	Siskiyou Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017182528	Small Ventures USA, L.P.	0 - 15,000,000
0017183237	Spectrum Acquisitions, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001960962	Star Telephone Membership Corporation	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0002901817	Swayzee Telephone Co. Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0003744406	TCT West, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017057787	Terra World Communications, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0005097381	The Chillicothe Telephone Company
0005069323	The Tri-County Telephone Association, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0002337509	The World Company
0015467749	Towerstream Corporation	0 - 15,000,000
0010907244	Tri-Valley Communications, LLC
0017182742	Triad 700, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0016655912	USA Choice Internet Services Company LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001685718	Valley Telephone Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014045504	Van Buren Wireless, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0017176207	Vavasi NexGen Inc.
0005209374	Vermont Telephone Company, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0007028723	Vulcan Spectrum LLC
0003936994	Washington County Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc	0 - 15,000,000
0002722049	West Wisconsin Telcom Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017195678	Wi2	0 - 15,000,000
0002624856	Wireless Communications Venture
0017164179	Worldcall Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0003801362	WUE, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016099210	Xpressweb Internet Services, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000

Of course, Google Airwaves, Inc. is the one bidder that is attracting all the attention. A number of other companies are interested as well.

Free Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 and all US Supreme Court decisions since 1754 Coming Soon

Hi Friends,

Carl Malamud and Public.Resource.org have gotten together with Ed Walters CEO of FastCase and are happy to announce that they will be putting online an archive of US Appeal Court decisions since 1950 and all of the US Supreme Court cases since 1754. Here is their announcement.

Announcement

1.8 million pages of federal case law to become freely available.

WASHINGTON, D.C. / SEBASTOPOL, CA—November 14, 2007—Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose.

“The U.S. judiciary has allowed their entire work product to be locked up behind a cash register,” said Carl Malamud, CEO of Public.Resource.Org. “Law is the operating system of our society and today's agreement means anybody can read the source for a substantial amount of case law that was previously unavailable.”

Fastcase, the leading developer of next-generation American legal research, has agreed to provide Public.Resource.Org with 1.8 million pages of federal case law. This is a marked departure for the online legal research industry, which traditionally has charged expensive subscription fees to access this information.

“For eight years, Fastcase has been ahead of the market curve, working to democratize access to the law,” said Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, Inc. “At the same time, we have been advancing the science of search, combining the precision of traditional legal research with the simplicity of Web-based searches.”

Fastcase has reversed the traditional subscription model for lawyers, contracting directly with 11 state bar associations to make the national law library free for lawyers in their states. “Through this agreement with Public.Resource.Org, we are proud to expand our efforts beyond lawyers, and to make more of the law available to the general public at no cost,” Walters said.

The agreement calls for definitive paperwork approved by both parties within 30 days with Public.Resource.Org making developer snapshots of the archive available in early 2008. Public.Resource.Org is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in this transaction. The cases will be marked with a new Creative Commons mark—CC-Ø—that signals that there are no copyrights or other related rights attached to the content.

This transaction represents a one-time purchase of a copy of data. This corpus will be integrated into the ongoing public services from organizations such as AltLaw and the Legal Information Institute, thus providing continuity of coverage into the future. Further announcements will be forthcoming on the availability of other case law, including Federal District and pre-1949 Appellate decisions.

Public.Resource.Org intends to perform an initial transformation on the federal case law archive obtained from Fastcase using open source “star” mapping software, which will allow the insertion of markers that will approximate page breaks based on user-furnished parameters such as page size, margins, and fonts. “Wiki” technology will be used to allow the public to move around these “star” markers, as well as add summaries, classifications, keywords, alternate numbering systems for citation purposes, and ratings or “diggs” on opinions.

Media Contacts

Lisa Miller	Carl Malamud
Fleishman-Hillard/Fastcase, Inc.	Public.Resource.Org
+1.202.857.2209	+1.707.827.7290
lisa.miller@fleishman.com	carl at media dot org

About Fastcase

Fastcase is the leading American provider of next-generation legal research, making the law accessible to more people by providing the national law library at a fraction of the cost of traditional companies. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy legal professionals sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling users to re-sort results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 275,000 paid subscribers from around the world. It is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.fastcase.com.

About Public.Resource.Org

Public.Resource.Org was founded in 2007 to spearhead the creation of public works projects for the Internet. A 501(c)(3) registered public charity, Public.Resource.Org has worked across all three branches of the U.S. government to enhance the public domain.

Beautiful!!!! Thanks Ed, FastCase, Carl & Public.Resource.org!!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin

Message from Ithaca

We are waiting... but will not wait too long.

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Website Updated!!!

Hi Friends,

The new Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site is up :) And I have not even gotten on the plane...

Mary Minow, Jon Silver and Justia's Cicely, Courtney, Dan, Nick and Vasu made it happen.

More info on the site once I land in beautiful Ithaca :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Ordinary People, Chrome Dreams II by Neil Young

Cornell LII Director Tom Bruce visits Stanford & Justia

Hi Friends,

One of the biggest forces in free online legal information, Tom Bruce, Director of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School stopped by to meet with the gang at Justia. It was great talking through ideas about the future of legal information. We are going to do some work together on new fun projects which will benefit the populations of the Internets :) It is going to be fantastic!!!

Tom visits the Cornell West campus near Palo Alto. We stopped by the key buildings on campus, the Gates' Computer Science building and the law school :)

Tom and some of the Justia programming team... who can't wait to put more free stuff online :)

Tom, Rio and Tim (me). Great beards. More photos will be up in the Justia Facebook Group :)

We are really looking forward to working with LII and putting more free stuff online! Here we go... :)

A Message from the Birds to the Pugs :)

Peace,

Tim

:: #9 Dream, Walls and Bridges by John Lennon

New Jurist Server Enters the Cage

Hi Friends,

Last night I had a good "trip" to the cage to add a new fast Web server for the Jurist Community and News Website run by Professor Bernard Hibbitts and his team. Ok... well technically I just watched my friend - Jurist's Technical Director Jeremiah Lee put it into the cage. The switch to the new machine will happen in the next month or so... Here Jeremiah finishes configuring the Jurist machine (the top one on the right-hand side rack) in record time. The easiest install ever. And now Jeremiah can start programming away all the new kewl Jurist features to come :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Thunder Road, Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Free Federal District Court Opinions Database with RSS Feeds & Full Text Search

Hi Friends,

We recently added the a FREE database of Federal District Court Opinions since 2004 that are available using the opinion report in the Federal Courts' ECF. The database is updated daily.

Here is the URL for the Federal District Court Opinions:

http://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/

Categorization & Rss Feeds - We have categorized the opinions by state, court, type of lawsuit and judge and combinations of judge and type of lawsuit. You can also subscribe to each of categories through RSS feeds to track a judge or court's decisions on different issues. And we also give the cause of action for each case.

Full Text Search - We are using Google's hosted Business Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/enterprise/csbe/) for the full text search.

Google is now OCRing PDF image files, so even PDF files that have images of scanned documents will be, in most cases, full text indexable and searchable (just like the OCR of Google's Book Search). You will need to look at the cached copy to see the highlighted searched text though, and then find in the original PDF to be 100% that what you are reading is correct. Google should be doing a pretty good job of indexing and ocring these court decisions, although it may take a few days for a new document to show up in the index.

We allow one to search across all of the documents, or to limit the search to Federal District Courts in a particular state or an individual Federal District Court. You can also search by party name, court and filed date.

Data Limitations - This data set does NOT include all of the Federal District Court opinions.

a. Not all of the courts have upgraded to ECF 2.4. So we do not have opinions for those courts that have not upgraded.

b. Not all opinions and orders are included by the Judges. As is stated on the PACER site

"Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as 'any document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision.' The responsibility for determining which documents meet this definition rests with the authoring judge."

Some judges have chosen not to include any of their opinions in the opinion report.

c. Some scans of are such poor quality that the OCR failed.

Federal District Court Case Filings Database Updated

We the US Federal District Court Case Filings database has been updated with Nice Opinion Icons. When we have a judge's opinion (you will see a little gavel :). The case filings are at:

http://dockets.justia.com

And we have added browse pages and RSS feeds by judge. That should make it easier to find other cases a particular judge has ruled on that are covering similar issues (at least at the broad case type level). If we have the opinions or orders online, you can see what the judge wrote, or you may need to log into the court's ECF system and obtain the briefs and other filings (and pay a small per page fee).

The case filings and opinion databases are related, as they both have Federal Court data, it is just that the opinions database is limited to those cases where we have opinions.

More to come: We have one more features we are going to be providing for the the Federal District Court Case Filings, and another one we are going to providing for the Federal District Court Opinions that will be very kewl. But we are all going to have to wait for Vasu, Nick and Dan to finish these up this week (the pressure is on now that I have practically pre-announced more new stuff this week :)

Peace,

Tim

:: The Promised Land, Darkness On the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen

Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org and Free Case Law

Hi Friends,

Our friend & hero Carl Malamud stopped by the "Justia offices" to talk about his new public interest public information project.... making the case law and codes of the United States of America (state and federal) freely accessible in a public domain archive. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post on Carl's project (and read the comments from other big names in the free law space, including Cornell's Tom Bruce and HyperLaw's Alan Sugarman :) This archived data can then be used and worked on by the folks at Cornell, Google, Stanford.... and everyone!

Carl's high energy, amazing track record of success of making government information freely accessible (EDGAR, Patents, Smithsonian, CSPAN, Congressional Hearings...), connections with the technology, educational, political and online information communities will help make free case law happen. We are excited to be helping and we are giving our full support!

Rio, Carl, Sheba and Tim posterized poster and posterized :) Ready to work!!!

Here is Carl giving a Google Tech talk a year or so ago about getting Congressional video onto Google Video and other places like the Internet Archive. He gives a nice overview of some of previous free information projects (I am sure there will be a new Google Tech talk on the free case law project soon :)

Dogs in the Office? Carl is for them! So are we!

Check out Public.Resource.Org... Just the beginning... but this is going to be Great!!!!!

Peace,

Tim

And in our own blast from the past (term taken from the O'Reilly blog comments of Alan Sugarman and Tom Bruce :)... Hal Varian, Cal SIMS econ-info-library professor, and now Google's Chief Economist, is part of Public.Resource.Org. When Stacy, Martin and I were starting FindLaw, Hal was there at the very beginning, the Northern California Law Libraries meeting where the site started. Later on, Hal connected us up with Northwestern's & Oyez's Jerry Goldman, who we are still working with to this day (although with Justia, not FindLaw) on the Oyez and the Supreme Court Center.

:: Give It Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers

New LexBlog - Real Lawyers Have Blogs - Blog

Hi Friends,

Kevin O'Keefe and the LexBlog team have updated the design and features of the LexBlog's "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" Blog.

LexBlog has changed the blog into a resource center for legal bloggers, with a Chicago Cubs look and feel :) Very nice... check it out (like we do every day :)

Peace,

Tim

:: It Don't Come Easy, Photograph: The Digital Greatest Hits by Ringo Starr

]]> WM 8/27/1966 - 9/7/1982

Bellingham Law Office and Riley the dog.

Hi Friends,

Cicely traveled up to Bellingham, Washington to meet with a new client Anderson, Connell & Carey to check out what the Bellingham work environment of ocean views and clean air is really like.

Debra Sheldon stands outside the office :)

Riley hangs out on the deck (more photos below).

Clean air, just like the Silicon Valley :)

A few more photos below in the extended entry... to get to Bellingham... just visit LexBlog and drive north 80 miles or and drive south 40 miles :).

Peace,

Tim

:: Instant Karma!, Lennon Legend by John Lennon

]]> &

Riley hanging out inside.

Anderson, Connell & Carey Bellingham Office view... :)

BlawgSearch Top Law Professor Blogs by edu visitors and Top Blawgs for August 2007

Hi Friends,

First, here are the top ten law professor blogs as determined by vistors on .edu networks on BlawgSearch.com. I set this filter up for Professor J. Robert Brown, Jr. and a paper he was writing on blogs and reputation. You can read his post about it here. While most .edu visitors are not all law professors, they do seek out more academic blogs. Anyway here is the list.

PrawfsBlawg [feed]
By Professors Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Rob Howse, Paul Horwitz, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Steve Vladeck and Orly Lobel.
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/
Conglomerate [feed]
Covers business, law, economics and society. By Professors Gordon Smith, Christine Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, and Lisa Fairfax.
http://www.theconglomerate.org/
Legal Theory Blog [feed]
Covers constitutional theory, feminist legal theory, law and economics, normative legal theory and more. By University of Illinois Professor Lawrence B. Solum.
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/
Empirical Legal Studies [feed]
Covers emerging empirical legal scholarship, conference updates and empirical claims. Edited by Professors Jason Czarnezki, Michael Heise, Theodore Eisenberg, William Ford, Sara Benesh, William Henderson, and Frank Cross.
http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/
Discourse.net [feed]
Covers civil liberties, the Internet, Guantanamo, Iraq attrocities, politics and more. By University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin.
http://www.discourse.net/
Sentencing Law and Policy [feed]
By Moritz College of Law Professor Douglas A. Berman.
http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/
The Volokh Conspiracy [feed]
By Eugene Volokh, Dale Carpenter, David Kopel, David Bernstein, David Post, Erik Jaffe, Ilya Somin, Jim Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Kevan Choset, Orin Kerr, Randy Barnett, Russell Korobkin, Sasha Volokh, Stuart Benjamin, Todd Zywicki & Tyler Cowen.
http://volokh.com/
Religion Clause [feed]
By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com
Technology & Marketing Law Blog [feed]
Covers Internet, technology and online marketing legal issues. Published by Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman.
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/
Balkinization [feed]
By Yale Law School Professor Jack M. Balkin.
http://balkin.blogspot.com

And Here are the overall most popular blogs on BlawgSearch.com for August 2007. David Badertscher's New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog lead the way.

New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog [feed]
News and information gateway to web based services provided by the New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term Library in New York County.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/PLL
Above the Law [feed]
A legal tabloid that provides news and gossip about the profession's colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments.
http://www.abovethelaw.com/
The Indiana Law Blog [feed]
Covers Indiana law, as well as interesting developments in law and government. By Marcia Oddi.
http://indianalawblog.com/
Class Action Defense Blog [feed]
Covers CAFA, class certification, employment law, FCRA, FDCPA and multidistrict litigation. Published by Michael Hassen of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP.
http://classactiondefense.jmbm.com/
Law Blog [feed]
Covers law and business and the business of law. By the Wall Street Journal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law
DealBook [feed]
Covers mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, IPOs, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital and law. A Financial News Service of The New York Times.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
Psychology of Compliance & Due Diligence Law [feed]
Covers due diligence, lawsuits, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and recovery of losses. By Michael Webster.
http://www.bizop.ca/blog2/
How Appealing [feed]
Covers appellate litigation. By Howard J. Bashman.
http://howappealing.law.com/
Religion Clause [feed]
By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com
Information Governance Engagement Area [feed]
Established with the goal of aggregating key compliance and electronic discovery news for further review, study, and consideration by legal and corporate professionals. Published by Rob Robinson.
http://infogovernance.blogspot.com

You can view the Top 200 Legal Blogs for May 2007 or view the most popular blogs in August for each of hundreds of categories. And you can view the main page of the rankings for August 2007 here.

Peace,

Tim

:: Patience, G N' R Lies by Guns N' Roses

ABA Journal Website - News, Articles, Blawgs!!!

Hi Friends,

Let me start our new month of blogging with a post on the great new ABA Journal Website. The site went live a few weeks ago, and includes articles from the magazine, updated daily news and a legal blog directory. The site is from ABA Journal Editor and Publisher Ed Adams, Fred Faulkner IV and the ABA Journal Web development and editorial team.

If you have not checked the new ABA Journal Website out already, you definitely should!

The new ABA Journal site brings a new focus on current legal news, which you can subscribe to by way of a RSS feed. The over look and feel is very clean and good looking, with a lot of focus on the user experience.

ABA Journal Magazine articles from the current and past issues are available to all... for free :)

And there is the ABA blawg directory that categorizes over a thousand blogs. Very nicely done.

You can read more about the new ABA Journal Website from Bob Amrbogi and Blawg.com's Bill Gratsch who wrote about it when the ABA Journal Website first came out :)

Again, check out the site if you have not already. There is a great amount of information on the site of interest to lawyers and anyone interested in law.

Peace,

Tim

:: #9 Dream, Walls and Bridges by John Lennon

Back to Blogging.. and Congrats to Appalachian State

Hi Friends,

Ken, Stacy and I are going to get back to blogging... finally :) We have been working on a few legal information projects this summer... which we talk about in the next few weeks.

But first, congrats to Appalachian State for beating Michigan on Saturday. It was a great game that they deserved to win. Not everyday a division IAA schools visits the number #5 team in the nation and beats them in front of every 109,000 fans. In fact never before, not even something close. Well maybe Michigan can win the rest of their games, win the BCS championship and be the second best team in the country.... And for my other school.. I went to the Stanford - UCLA game, and UCLA won (on the positive side, my seats are in the shade and UCLA is my third favorite team :).

UPDATE: LexBlog - Montana student Colin O'Keefe interviewed Appalachian State athletic director Charlie Cobb on the Grizzoulian blog. Now I am sure he is off to interview GT AD Dan Radakovich:)

Peace,

Tim

:: Hail, Hail,No Code by Pearl Jam

TechnoLawyer BlawgWorld 2007 eBook Released

Hi Friends,

This years BlawgWorld e-book is out from Neil Squillante, Sara Skiff and the TechnoLawyer Team.

The BlawgWorld 2007 ebook has sample posts from a number of blogs, AND a legal technology solutions guide. You can download the ebook here. It is free :)

You can also check out the ebook press materials, including a video on the TechnoLawyer blog.

So download away, read a few posts, and check out the solutions guide as well!

Peace,

Tim

:: You Get What You Give, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too by the New Radicals

New York Lawyer Advertising Rules Found Unconstitutional by Federal District Court - New Rules Violate First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted a permanent injunction against a number of the amended rules on attorney advertising that had become effective in February, finding portions of the new rules unconstitutional as protected free speech under the First Amendment. In particular, the court enjoined the enforcement of Disciplinary Rules of the Code of Professional Responsibility contained in N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, SS 1200.6(c)(1), (3), (5), (7), and (g)(1). These include rules against the use of client testimonials, the portrayal of judges, attention-getting techniques, nicknames and mottos, and Internet pop-up ads.

The suit was brought by Public Citizen and member attorney James L. Alexander and his law firm, Alexander & Catalano. Alexander & Catalano had been required to change its advertising earlier this year to comply with the more restrictive rules.

New York's Code of Professional Responsibility for lawyers is designed to protect consumers by prohibiting false and misleading lawyer advertisements. The court found that although the state has a substantial interest in encouraging the clean flow of truthful, helpful, relevant, verifiable information about attorney services, it had failed to show that the amendments on client testimonials, attention getting and the use of nicknames and mottos materially advanced the state interest, and that the amendment on the portrayal of judges was narrowly tailored in advancing that interest. Further, the court rejected the defendant's assertion that the restriction on pop-up ads was necessary because of their fleeting nature, explaining that there is no evidence that the regulation of pop-up or pop-under ads is any more difficult than regulating TV, radio or Websites.

The court upheld rules on use of deceptive domain names and the thirty-day moratorium on contacting victims, their families or representatives.

Public Citizen also challenged the rules' application to non-commercial speech, such as offers by lawyers to represent clients pro bono in civil rights cases, and the court construed the challenged amendments not to apply to nonprofit legal services.

References:

Read the Federal Court decision and filings by both parties.

Read the statement from New York State Bar President Kathryn Grant Madigan in response to the court decision.

Read Public Citizen's press release in response to the decision.