ABA's 'Missouri Project' Quantifies Overworked Public Defender Stereotype

Public defenders are overworked. This is not news. This is how it's been since Gideon v. Wainright. It's part-and-parcel of the gig: Represent those whom society doesn't really care about and do it with fewer resources than your adversary in...



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Call for papers: JURISIN 2014: International Workshop on Juris-informatics

The call for papers has been issued for JURISIN 2014: International Workshop on Juris-informatics, being held 23-24 November 2014, at Keio University Kanagawa.

The submission deadline is 10 September 2014.

Papers are invited on topics including:

• Model of legal reasoning


• Argumentation / Negotiation / Argumentation agent


• Legal term ontology


• Formal legal knowledge-base / Intelligent management of legal knowledge-base


• Translation of legal documents


• Information retrieval of legal texts


• Computer-aided law education


• Use of Informatics and AI in law


• Legal issues on ubiquitous computing / multi-agent system / the Internet


• Social implications of use of informatics and AI in law


• Natural language processing for legal knowledge


• Verification and validation of legal knowledge systems


• Any theories and technologies which is not directly related with juris-informatics but has a potential to contribute to this domain

For more details, please see the conference Website.

Filed under: Calls for papers, Conference Announcements Tagged: Legal informatics conferences



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4 Factors Lawyers Should Look for When Choosing a Client

Earlier this week, we told you what clients look for in an attorney. Now, when all those clients come rushing to your door, how do you decide whom to represent? It's better to assess what you want in a...



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FindLaw Survey: 4 Factors Clients Look for When Hiring a Lawyer

When consumers need an attorney, what do they do? How do they find you? What do they want to know? The FindLaw 2014 U.S. Consumer Legal Needs Survey asked legal consumers how they went about hiring an attorney and...



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3 Reasons to Take Business Risks in Your Legal Practice

During times of relative stability, it's so tempting to grow complacent. Sure, there are those professional risks you've fantasized about taking to boost your practice. But the dreaded string of "what ifs" soon follows and puts those fledgling temptations...



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Hagan and Kimbro: Access Hub Project: Designing new resources for legal service providers

Margaret Hagan has a new post about her and Stephanie Kimbro ‘s project: The Access Hub Project: Designing new resources for legal service providers .

Here are excerpts from the post:

I’ve been working alongside Steph Kimbro to do some scoping & groundwork for an Access Hub design — that would be a resource for legal service providers (in self-help & legal aid centers) interested in integrating tech into their practice, & learning best practices for more efficient & quality services. [...]

Steph received an initial ambit through the ABA’s Blueprint Project to create a participatory online platform, which would allow people working in the world of Access to Justice to pull together resources, share ideas, and create a repository of knowledge of what kind of projects have worked (and which ones have failed) in the A2J and legal aid space.

[...] [W]e began with defining ‘use cases’ — to identify what stakeholders were most central to the project, and what functions an Access Hub would help them accomplish. [...]

After which, Steph whittled down to a main use case:

legal aid managers, who direct an access-oriented legal organization, who want to share & seek best practices about service delivery & also are considering integrating more tech into their practice to increase efficiency & quality

[...]

User Requirements for an Access Hub:

• Easy to access & non-obtrusive [...]


• Not ‘another frikkin website’ [...]


• Interactivity is key [...]


• Customization to local context [...]


• Give out-of-the-box usable resources [...]


• Maintenance must be baked in [...]

[...] [W]e’ll be focused in the next month on drafting possible prototypes of an Access Hub. [...]

This project [...] will be aimed mainly at the Legal Service Provider as the main stakeholder, to empower her & help her improve her daily workflow and quality of service.

Below, please find some of my sketches that I’ve been working on — with more developed designs to appear here over the next month.

If you have some experience in this area & have ideas for prototypes, design choices, user/system requirements, or otherwise — please leave feedback or write to us! [...]

To see the sketches and for more details, please see the complete post.

HT @StephKimbro

Filed under: Applications, Others' scholarly or sophisticated blogposts, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools, Uncategorized Tagged: ABA Blueprint Project, Access to justice, Access to justice and legal information systems, Access to justice technology, Blueprint Project, Design of legal information systems, Legal design, Legal information design, Legal information systems design, Legal technology design, Margaret Hagan, Program for Legal Technology and Design, Stephanie Kimbro, Technology and access to justice, Technology for access to justice



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Code4Italy@Montecitorio Open Data Hackathon 2014: Video, storify, and resources

Code4Italy@Montecitorio Open Data Hackathon 2014 was held 16-18 May 2014, with an award ceremony on 24 July 2014, at the Italian Chamber of Deputies in Rome.

The event Website, which includes the program, participant descriptions, and links to data sets, is at: http://ift.tt/1pcVyNn

Video of the award ceremony is available at: http://ift.tt/1uuabi3

The Twitter hashtag for the event was #code4italy

A storify of photos and Twitter tweets from the event is at: http://ift.tt/1uuaWHP

According to the video page, the three projects honored at the awards ceremony were:

• Camera 4 DUMMIES: Semplificazione lettura dati Camera ed accessibilità: http://ift.tt/W9VFN0


• #SocialCamera: Open Data più fruibili, Social Network più credibili: Come arricchire gli opendata con fonti esterne per renderli meno noiosi: http://ift.tt/1wuiXZ5


• PaLmaS: Visualizzazione del processo legislativo: http://ift.tt/1yqB59a

Here is a description of the event, from the event’s Website:

L’Hackathon Code4Italy@Montecitorio 2014 è un evento rivolto ad esperti di informatica – sviluppatori di software e grafici web – interessati a conoscere e utilizzare i dati aperti prodotti dalla Camera dei deputati relativi alla istituzione e alla attività parlamentare.

L’obiettivo dell’iniziativa è aumentare la conoscenza dei dati aperti parlamentari, che la Camera dei deputati ha messo a disposizione del web già a partire dal 2011, e promuoverne il riuso da parte della comunità degli sviluppatori e di soggetti interessati, offrendo un’occasione per proporre e realizzare applicazioni con essi, e dando seguito all’invito già rivolto nel sito dati.camera.it a proporre applicazioni riutilizzando gli Open Data pubblicati.

L’Hackathon, come avviene di consueto per analoghi eventi, si è svolto in forma competitiva e collaborativa.

Prima della fase di sviluppo di software, è stata prevista una sessione di formazione, dedicata a chi vuole lavorare sui dataset offerti dalla Camera dei deputati, e una fase di presentazione dei progetti per la realizzazione di applicazioni, dando l’opportunità ai partecipanti di tenere un proprio pitch (proposta) per illustrare come i servizi da loro ideati andrebbero a integrarsi con il lavoro dei parlamentari e dello staff, e come in generale l’uso di smart device con applicativi di questo tipo può aiutare anche la società civile a comprendere meglio l’iter parlamentare.

Ai partecipanti è stato consentito sia di collaborare e organizzare le attività in gruppi di lavoro, sia terminare e rifinire gli sviluppi nella successiva settimana, consegnando le soluzioni entro tale termine.

I prodotti consegnati, consistenti in applicazioni basate sul riuso degli Open Data della Camera, sono stati valutati da una Commissione giudicatrice appositamente costituita, che ha individuato i primi tre progetti classificati meritevoli di premio. [...]

Click here for information about other legal hackathons.

HT @monicapalmirani

Filed under: Applications, Conference resources, Data sets, Hackathons, Hacking, Storify, Technology developments, Technology tools, Videos Tagged: #code4italy, #SocialCamera, Camera 4 DUMMIES, Code4Italy@Montecitorio Open Data Hackathon, Code4Italy@Montecitorio Open Data Hackathon 2014, eparticipation, Legal hackathons, Legislative information systems, Open legal data, Open legislative data, Open parliamentary data, PaLmaS, Parliamentary information systems, Public access to legal information, Public access to legislative information, Public access to parliamentary information, Visualization of legal information, Visualization of legislative information, Visualization of parliamentary information



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Holler: Our Favorite Posts From the Blawgosphere (Week of July 20)

Oh, beckoning weekend: what adventures do you have in store? Motorcycles? Prison? Binge watching mediocre television on Netflix? We can't wait! But, if you're looking for something to keep you occupied for the last couple of hours before your weekend...



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Katz, Bommarito, and Blackman: Predicting the Behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States: A General Approach

Daniel Martin Katz , Michael Bommarito , and Josh Blackman , have posted a working paper entitled Predicting the Behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States: A General Approach .

Here is the abstract:

Building upon developments in theoretical and applied machine learning, as well as the efforts of various scholars including Guimera and Sales-Pardo (2011), Ruger et al. (2004), and Martin et al. (2004), we construct a model designed to predict the voting behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States. Using the extremely randomized tree method first proposed in Geurts et al. (2006), a method similar to the random forest approach developed in Breiman (2001), as well as novel feature engineering, we predict more than sixty years of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States (1953-2013). Using only data available prior to the date of decision, our model correctly identifies 69.7% of the Court’s overall affirm and reverse decisions and correctly forecasts 70.9% of the votes of individual justices across 7,700 cases and more than 68,000 justice votes. Our performance is consistent with the general level of prediction offered by prior scholars. However, our model is distinctive as it is the first robust, generalized, and fully predictive model of Supreme Court voting behavior offered to date. Our model predicts six decades of behavior of thirty Justices appointed by thirteen Presidents. With a more sound methodological foundation, our results represent a major advance for the science of quantitative legal prediction and portend a range of other potential applications, such as those described in Katz (2013).

HT @computational

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Research findings Tagged: Daniel Martin Katz, Extremely randomized tree method, Josh Blackman, Judges' legal decision making, Judges' legal decisionmaking, Legal decisionmaking, Legal prediction, Legal prediction and machine learning, Machine learning and law, Machine learning and legal prediction, Michael Bommarito, Michael J Bommarito II, Quantitative legal prediction, Random forest, Randomized tree method, Statistical methods in legal informatics, U.S. Supreme Court



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Ironic: Firm Handles FLSA Cases, Doesn't Pay Paralegals Overtime

The Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA) exemption for "learned" individuals -- it's a grey line sometimes. But other times, it's really, really not. FLSA puts us lawyerly folk into the "exempt" category due to our advanced degrees. The same goes...



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ZoningCheck: Zoning regulation lookup service

ZoningCheck, an online zoning regulation lookup service, has been launched by OpenCounter.

Here is a description, from the service’s About page:

ZoningCheck is a zoning lookup tool that helps business owners, real estate developers, and interested citizens quickly understand the zoning clearance of their land use. ZoningCheck aims to answer the basic but complicated question: “where is my project permitted?” [...]

ZoningCheck leverages a geospatial rules engine to calculate zoning clearances across all of the zoning districts and zoning overlays in the jurisdiction. ZoningCheck also calculates use-specific requirements—like whether a restaurant will serve alcohol, or whether a bakery will have a retail space—which can change the clearance determination of the base land use. By wrapping these calculations in a beautiful user interface, ZoningCheck provides an intuitive guide to complex zoning regulations. [...]

ZoningCheck data is imported directly from the city’s municipal code and GIS resources [...]

ZoningCheck was made possible by an investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and through the support of the Code for America Accelerator. You can learn more about our story at www.opencounter.us [...]

Alex Howard has a recent post about the service, at TechRepublic : ZoningCheck puts computable municipal codes to good use .

HT @digiphile

Filed under: Applications, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Alex Howard, Code for America, Code for America Accelerator, Knight Foundation, Land use law information systems, Legislative data, Legislative information systems, OpenCounter, Real property information systems, Regulatory data, Regulatory information systems, Reuse of legislative data, Reuse of regulatory data, TechRepublic, Zoning law information systems, Zoning regulation information systems, ZoningCheck



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This is Not OK: Prosecutors Reading Inmates' Emails to Lawyers

If a prisoner talks to his lawyer in person, at the prison, the prosecutor typically can't eavesdrop. If he writes his lawyer a letter, the same protections apply. If they talk on the phone, again, the prosecutor is supposed to...



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Morozov on algorithmic regulation

There seems to be much discussion of Evgeny Morozov’s new op-ed article on algorithmic regulation, entitled The rise of data and the death of politics , The Guardian / The Observer , 19 July 2014.

The conclusion:

Algorithmic regulation, whatever its immediate benefits, will give us a political regime where technology corporations and government bureaucrats call all the shots. [...]

For more details, please see the complete article.

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Policy debates, Technology developments Tagged: Algorithmic law, Algorithmic regulation, Computational law, Evgeny Morozov, Guardian, Observer



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Colbran et al.: The role of digital flashcards in legal education: Theory and potential

Stephen Colbran , Anthony Gilding, and Samuel Colbran have published The role of digital flashcards in legal education: Theory and potential , European Journal of Law and Technology , 5(1) (2014).

Here is the abstract:

This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon the potential use of digital flashcards in legal education using traditional cards expressed in digital format and more interactive flashcards taking advantage of rich media and Web 2.0 technologies. A taxonomy of digital flashcards is developed together with a discussion on how they may be used in legal education. An analysis of where digital flashcards sit within the HoTel, Biggs and Tang SOLO and Atkinson SOLE learning theory frameworks is presented. A new free cloud-based flashcard tool, FlashCram is outlined enabling the easy assembly and sharing of digital flashcards. The article concludes by showing how the traditional flashcard may be reinvented in the digital age into a useful tool for legal education.

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Anthony Gilding, Digital flashcards in legal education, EJLT, Electronic flashcards in legal education, European Journal of Law and Technology, Flashcards in legal education, Legal educational technology, Legal instructional technology, Samuel Colbran, Stephen Colbran



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How to Determine Whether You Will Give Summer Associates Offers

The end of summer is near, and the fall semester of law school is approaching. As your summer associate season comes to a close, there's one big question looming: will you extend the summer associates offers? These days, having...



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New project: Castan et al.: Social Media in Legal Education

Melissa Castan , Kate Galloway , Melissa de Zwart , and Kristoffer Greaves have begun a new project called Social Media in Legal Education .

The project’s Website is at: http://ift.tt/1jN19b8

The project’s Twitter account is: @SocMedinLegalEd

Here is a description of the project, from the project’s About page:

S|M| i |L|E (Social Media in Legal Education) is a collaborative project commenced by legal education academics: Melissa Castan, Kate Galloway, Melissa de Zwart, and Kristoffer Greaves.

The project aims to promote and support the integration of social media into legal education. To begin, we curate resources, to support academics, early career researchers, higher degree by research students, law students, and legal practitioners.

In the future we will invite guests to contribute posts about their knowledge, experiences, and plans, regarding social media in legal education. [...]

HT @MsCastan

Filed under: Applications, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Kate Galloway, Kristoffer Greaves, Legal educational technology, Legal instructional technology, Legal scholarly communication, Legal social media, Melissa Castan, Melissa de Zwart, SMiLE, Social media and law, Social media and legal scholarly communication, Social media in legal education



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The following forthcoming book on legal journalism may be of interest to our readers:

Richard Davis (ed.), Covering the United States Supreme Court in a Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Here is the publisher’s description:

The U.S. Supreme Court seeks to withhold information about its deliberations, while the press’s job is to report and disseminate this information. These two objectives conflict and create tension between the justices and the reporters who cover them; add to that the increasing demands for transparency in the digital age and the result is an interesting dynamic between an institution that seeks to preserve its opaqueness and a press corps that demands greater transparency. This volume examines the relationship between justices and the press through chapters that discuss facets such as coverage of the institution, the media’s approach to the docket, and the effects of news coverage on public opinion. Additionally, two journalists who cover the court offer insights into the profession of reporting today, while two biographers of Supreme Court justices share the perspectives of those justices regarding the press.

Filed under: Articles and papers, Chapters, Monographs Tagged: Cambridge University Press, Covering the United States Supreme Court in a Digital Age, Legal communication, Legal journalism, Media coverage of courts, Media coverage of justice administration, Media coverage of the judiciary, Richard Davis, U.S. Supreme Court



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Law Schools, Technology, and Access to Justice Conference, 17-19 July 2014: Storify and resources

A conference entitled Law Schools, Technology, and Access to Justice, was held 17-19 July 2014 at the University of Missouri Kansas City, in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

The conference was sponsored by the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law, the University of Massachusetts School of Law, and the Kauffman Foundation.

The conference Website is at: http://ift.tt/1k4wXIY

The conference program is at: http://ift.tt/UjwQwz

Twitter hashtags for the event include #umkca2j and #umkclegaltech

Click here for a storify of images and Twitter tweets from the event.

HT @computational

Filed under: Applications, Policy debates, Presentations, Storify, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Access to justice and legal information systems, Access to justice and technology, Daniel Martin Katz, Dazza Greenwood, Innovation in legal technology, Jonathan Askin, Kauffman Foundation, Law school technology, Law Schools Technology and Access to Justice, Law Schools Technology and Access to Justice Conference, Legal educational technology, Legal informatics conferences, Legal instructional technology, Legal technology innovation, Richard Granat, Technology for access to justice, Tony Lai, UMass Law School, UMKC Law School, University of Massachusetts School of Law, University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law



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Holler: Our Favorite Posts From the Blawgosphere (Week of July 13)

Sorry folks: no porn or leather this week. Instead, our weekly shout-out to the best law-related things on the Internet is a bit more tame, and some might say pragmatic.  It's office attire. And a guy kicked out of court...



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NOLA Lawyer Charged With Cyberstalking in Noise Ordinance Dispute

This is a wee bit ridiculous. New Orleans Attorney Stuart Smith, a notable environmental lawyer, apparently hates noise, fun, and cabaret shows. Robert Watters owns Rick's Cabaret and opposes strict noise ordinances in the French Quarter. On its own, this...



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Free Law Founders: New group promotes free access to law and citizens’ participation in lawmaking

Free Law Founders — a new organization promoting free online access to law and citizens’ participation in lawmaking — has launched.

Here is a description of the group, from the group’s Website:

Citizens, technologists and public officials working together to transform state & local lawmaking for the 21st Century

The Free Law Founders is a nation-wide, collaborative effort open to all people who want to improve how laws and legislation are produced and presented to citizens of American states and cities. Our goal is to modernize how democracy works in the United States from the ground up. To get there, we’re creating open source tools and open data formats government workers need to get their jobs done efficiently, effectively and accountably. And we’re building digital democracy platforms so citizens can finally access legislative information online in user-friendly, interactive formats that make sense. And we’re making all of our work available on the Internet for any community to reuse at no cost. [...]

The founding members of the group include:

• Ben Kallos


• Mark Farrell


• Susana Mendoza


• V. David Zvenyach


• Seamus Kraft


• Bill Hunt


• Curt Savoie


• Dazza Greenwood


• David Moore

The group has opened a project called the Free Law Founders’ Challenge:

You can join the Free Law Founder Challenge: to create a one-stop shop site for legislatures to be more open transparent and tech-savvy before the year is out.

At their keynote speech “Hack The Law” at the MIT Media Lab Legal Hackathon online conference in June 2014, New York City Council Member Ben Kallos and San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell called on a nation of civic hackers to create a free and open source democracy platform for legislatures by next year.

The site will have five free and open source tools for:

• Drafting legislation


• Commenting on legislation


• Making it available over open API


• Opening up the law online


• Authenticating the law

[...]

Free Law Founders is covered in a new article by Michael Grass in Government Executive : Open Gov Backers Launch ‘Free Law’ Group

For more details, please see the group’s Website.

HT @brianpurchia

Filed under: Applications, Organizations, Policy debates, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Ben Kallos, Citizens' participation in lawmaking, Crowdlaw, Curt Savoie, David Moore, Dazza Greenwood, eparticipation, Free access to law, Free Law Founders, Legal crowdsourcing, Mark Farrell, Public access to legal information, Seamus Kraft, Susana Mendoza, V. David Zvenyach



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Zhang: Public Access to Primary Legal Information in China: Challenges and Opportunities

Xiaomeng Zhang, J.D., M.S.I., M.A., of the University of Michigan has published Public Access to Primary Legal Information in China: Challenges and Opportunities , Legal Information Management , 14, 132-142 (2014).

Here is the abstract:

Despite a lack of a national legislation that mandates open government information in the People’s Republic of China, each major government branch has taken proactive efforts to make primary legal information issued within their power available to the public. A close examination of Chinese official legal information portals on the national level reveal issues such as a lack of uniformity and a lack of access to authenticated primary legal information. This article [...] proposes a solution that would not only offer more consistent guidelines for the government but would empower the public to assert their right to primary legal information more powerfully and effectively.

Filed under: Articles and papers, Policy debates Tagged: Alex X. Zhang, Authentication of legal information, Free access to law, Free access to law in China, Legal Information Management, Public access to legal information, Public access to legal information in China, Xiaomeng Zhang



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What Is Firm Culture and How to Create It

We've been talking about firm culture a bit, but haven't really defined the term. Think of it as your law firm's personality. While you've probably heard the concept of "lifestyle firm" when it comes the occasional BigLaw or MidLaw...



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DUI Law Firm (Allegedly) Appropriates Beer Label Design for Ads

One of the more creative ideas I've had for advertising a law firm was to put a DUI law firm's phone number on bottle openers and either leave them on the counter at a liquor store or toss 'em into...



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Vogel and Schrecklinger: Retrospective Digitisation of Legal Sources in Germany

Ivo Vogel and Elisabeth Schrecklinger, both of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, have published Retrospective Digitisation of Legal Sources in Germany , Legal Information Management , 14, 105-109 (2014).

Here is the abstract:

This article … deals with the efforts of German libraries to digitise historical legal sources and make them publicly available. Although the main focus is on two selected libraries, a general overview is included. Commercial products are not considered since their contents are likely to become increasingly less relevant due to German law libraries’ own initiatives. More attention is paid to problems that have been identified during the implementation of digitisation projects such as the recording of full texts is highlighted. The retrieval of digitised legal materials and, eventually, the digitisation of historical legal gazettes or parliamentary literature is also discussed. This contribution focuses exclusively on the retrospective digitisation of historical legal materials.

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Technology developments Tagged: Digitization of legal documents, Digitization of legal information, Elisabeth Schrecklinger, Ivo Vogel, Legal Information Management



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AALL Hackathon 2014: Some results

Results of at least two projects from the American Association of Law Libraries’ Hackathon 2014 have been posted:

PROXYsearch , developed by Eve Ross and colleagues:

• Description: a single search template for the South Carolina Judicial Department’s website


• Code: http://ift.tt/1ykY6u9


• Wiki: http://ift.tt/1ykY6ua

Data comparing aspects of government document authentication and preservation between U.S. states , by Wilhelmina Randtke and colleagues:

• Website and data: http://ift.tt/1jtzf3M

HT @randtke and @eveross

Filed under: Applications, Conference resources, Data sets, Hackathons, Hacking, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: #aall14, #aall2014, #AALLHack, #LegalHack, AALL Hackathon, AALL Hackathon 2014, American Association of Law Libraries Hackathon, Authentication of digital legal information, Authentication of electronic legal information, CALI, Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction, Court information systems, Eve Ross, Jen Wondracek, Judicial information systems, Law Librarians Hack the Law, Legal hackathons, Legal hacking events, Preservation of digital legal information, Preservation of electronic legal information, Wilhelmina Randtke



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How to Accept Feedback from Employees: 4 Tips

We've talked a lot on this blog about how to give feedback to employees, but as we said on Friday, communication is a two-way street. Just as we have feedback for our employees, they may have some feedback of their...



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Open Data Control Legal Hackathon, 12-13 July 2014: Video, links, and resources

Open Data Control: Convergence: Legal Hackathon for Data Control , was held 12-13 July 2014, in Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, and online.

The event was hosted by Open Notice, and was collocated with OKFestival 2014.

The Website for the event is at: http://ift.tt/1rsfrQU

Videos from the event are available at: http://ift.tt/1rsfrQU

The Twitter hashtags for the event appear to be #convergathon and #convergeathon

The Twitter account for the event is @convergathon

The schedule and speaker list for the event are at: http://ift.tt/1jH9eyy

Click here for the etherpad for the event.

Click here for the Hacker League site for the event, which lists projects, participants, themes, rules, and other resources.

Here is a description of the event, from the event’s Website:

Open Notice is hosting a Data Control Convergence Event in Berlin, mixing different communities and efforts engaged in taking control of personal data. [...]

Speakers/Attendees Include

• Doc Searls


• Eve Maler


• Lionel Wolberger


• Mary Hodder


• Dazza Greenwood

We aim to bring up some of the ‘elephants in the room ‘ when it comes to data control, notice and consent, and data sharing. To discuss what is emerging next in Big Data, data control and privacy.

And to think big in terms of global data control and enforcement. [...]

Here is a description of the legal hacking activities at the event, from the Hacker League page for the event:

Using the law for control over and access to my data, opening laws (e.g. crowdsourcing), international data transfers and Safe Harbour. Policy education around big data and data mining systems, or helping people apprehend the meaning of policies or legal systems in their understanding of how a system or data revealed might affect them.

This event is part of a series of events called Data Control and Privacy: Convergence Series.

For more details, please see the event’s Website.

Filed under: Applications, Conference resources, Hackathons, Hacking, Technology developments, Technology tools, Videos Tagged: #convergathon, #convergeathon, Data Control and Privacy: Convergence Series, Data privacy information systems, Data privacy law information systems, Dazza Greenwood, Doc Searls, Eve Maler, Legal hackathons, Lionel Wolberger, Mary Hodder, OK Festival, OK Festival 2014, Open Notice, Privacy law information systems



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Reiling: The eKantonrechter: Direct digital court access for citizens

Senior Judge Dory Reiling, Ph.D., of the Amsterdam District Court has posted The eKantonrechter: Direct digital court access for citizens , at Technology for Justice .

Here are excerpts from the post:

The Netherlands judiciary recently completed a digital procedure for everyday disputes. This blog explains how eKantonrechter was developed and implemented. [...]

This time, the procedure was designed to start with a digital form. The parties, after agreeing to put their dispute before the court, each fill out a part of it. Because the procedure is consensual and not adversarial, the rules are less complex. The procedure itself is conducted entirely over the internet, except for the hearing which is face to face in court. [...]

We tested the different methods, on paper, with a test panel provided by the Dutch Consumers Union. We had devised fictional disputes, cases our panelists could use to fill out our forms: a contract case about a fading couch, another one about a labor dispute, and a tort case involving physical damage. This enabled us to check whether different types of disputes can be described adequately. With lots of feedback from the panel, we designed a digital form combining structured and unstructured questions. The panel came back, tested this form, and told us they needed more context and help in answering the questions. We then added explanations and help information. For those who feel they cannot fill out the forms themselves, we added a link to the legal aid kiosk, the Juridisch Loket. The panel then came back to test the final product. They told us they could use the form easily. The eKanton procedure for citizens went live at the end of May 2014. [...]

For more details, please see the complete post.

HT Dory Reiling

Filed under: Applications, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Consumer law information systems, Court information systems, Digital courts, Dory Reiling, ecourts, eKantonrechter, Electronic courts, Judicial information systems, Online court proceedings, Online dispute resolution, Technology for Justice



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Ferrara et al.: Visualizing criminal networks reconstructed from mobile phone records

Dr. Emilio Ferrara , Dr. Pasquale De Meo , Salvatore Catanese , and Professor Dr. Giacomo Fiumara have posted a paper entitled Visualizing criminal networks reconstructed from mobile phone records , to be presented at Data Wiz 2014: Data Visualization Workshop of Hypertext, to be held 1-4 September 2014 in Santiago, Chile, in conjunction with ACM Hypertext 2014 Conference.

Here is the abstract:

In the fight against the racketeering and terrorism, knowledge about the structure and the organization of criminal networks is of fundamental importance for both the investigations and the development of efficient strategies to prevent and restrain crimes. Intelligence agencies exploit information obtained from the analysis of large amounts of heterogeneous data deriving from various informative sources including the records of phone traffic, the social networks, surveillance data, interview data, experiential police data, and police intelligence files, to acquire knowledge about criminal networks and initiate accurate and destabilizing actions. In this context, visual representation techniques coordinate the exploration of the structure of the network together with the metrics of social network analysis. Nevertheless, the utility of visualization tools may become limited when the dimension and the complexity of the system under analysis grow beyond certain terms. In this paper we show how we employ some interactive visualization techniques to represent criminal and terrorist networks reconstructed from phone traffic data, namely foci, fisheye and geo-mapping network layouts. These methods allow the exploration of the network through animated transitions among visualization models and local enlargement techniques in order to improve the comprehension of interesting areas. By combining the features of the various visualization models it is possible to gain substantial enhancements with respect to classic visualization models, often unreadable in those cases of great complexity of the network.

Click here for a post about the authors’ earlier paper, entitled Detecting criminal organizations in mobile phone networks .

HT @net_science

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Conference papers, Research findings Tagged: Cluster analysis and legal data, Community detection analysis and legal data, Criminal investigation software, Criminal justice information systems, Criminal networks, Data Visualization Workshop of Hypertext, Data Wiz, Data Wiz 2014, Emilio Ferrara, Giacomo Fiumara, Interactive visualization of legal data, Legal expert systems, Legal knowledge based systems, Legal social network analysis, LogAnalysis, LogAnalysis social network analysis algorithm, LogAnalysis social network analysis software, Newman community detection algorithm, Pasquale De Meo, Salvatore Catanese, Social network analysis, Social network analysis and legal data, Social network analysis of criminal networks, Social network analysis of criminal organizations, Visualization of legal information, Visualization of legal social networks



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July 12: AALL Hackathon: Building the Information Future, San Antonio

American Association of Law Libraries’ (AALL) Hackathon: Building the Information Future , is being held 12 July 2014 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Datasets, project ideas, and discussion regarding the event are available at: Law Librarians Hack the Law .

The Twitter hashtags for the event appear to include #legalhack, #aall14, #AALLHack and #AALL2014

Here is a description from the conference program:

[...]For this workshop, San Antonio programmers and designers will be invited to join with law librarians to use technology to transform a government data set into new resources that will increase the data’s accessibility and discoverability. Teams of librarians and technologists will work collaboratively to plan and implement these projects. The main goals for this hackathon are to create new information sources for patrons and librarians using government information, and to build relationships between the two groups that will go beyond this event and encourage further collaboration in the development of information resources. [...]

Click here for information on other legal hackathons.

HT @JenWondracek

Filed under: Applications, Data sets, Hackathons, Hacking, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: #aall14, #aall2014, #AALLHack, #LegalHack, AALL Hackathon, AALL Hackathon 2014, American Association of Law Libraries Hackathon, CALI, Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction, Jen Wondracek, Law Librarians Hack the Law, Legal hackathons, Legal hacking events



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Holler: Our Favorite Posts From the Blawgosphere (Week of July 6)

Porn. Dominatrices. Online privacy. Judges dropping F-bombs. And one badass Army Captain blogging about her experience with the JAG Corps. Welcome to "Holler," a weekly piece where we'll give shout-outs to the best things we've seen that week in the...



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