PALMPrint, preservation project for print legal materials, reaches 60 members

PALMPrint, the cooperative print legal preservation project organized by the New England Law Library Consortium (NELLCO) and the Legal Information Preservation Alliance (LIPA), now has 60 participating library members, according to a post by Darin Fox at the LIPA Blog .

NELLCO describes PALMPrint as follows:

Preserving America’s Legal Materials in Print (PALMPrint), is an exciting collaborative pilot project aimed at developing a shared, cirulating collection of primary, U.S. legal materials in print. Working with the Legal Information Preservation Alliance (LIPA), the two organizations jointly have committed to underwrite $120,000.00 of the total cost of the three-year project. The remaining costs will be shared by the participating libraries.[...]

More details on the project appear in this document.

Margie Maes of LIPA published a post about the project in October 2012.

It’s unclear whether PALMPrint functions as a last-copy print preservation program.

HT Margie Maes of LIPA and Tracy Thompson-Przylucki of NELLCO

Filed under: Applications, Projects Tagged: Darin Fox, Legal Information Preservation Alliance, Legal preservation, LIPA, LIPA Blog, Margie Maes, NELLCO, New England Law Library Consortium, PALMPrint, Preservation of print legal documents, Preservation of print legal resources, Tracy Thompson-Przylucki



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/palmprint-preservation-project-for-print-legal-materials/

Paunio: Language, Discourse, and Reasoning at the European Court of Justice

Dr. Elina Paunio of the European Court of Justice has published the book version of her doctoral dissertation entitled Legal Certainty in Multilingual EU Law: Language, Discourse and Reasoning at the European Court of Justice (Ashgate, 2013).

Here is the publisher’s description:

How can multilingualism and legal certainty be reconciled in EU law?

Despite the importance of multilingualism for the European project, it has attracted only limited attention from legal scholars. This book provides a valuable contribution to this otherwise neglected area. Whilst firmly situated within the field of EU law, the book also employs theories developed in linguistics and translation studies. More particularly, it explores the uncertainty surrounding the meaning of multilingual EU law and the impact of multilingualism on judicial reasoning at the European Court of Justice. To reconceptualize legal certainty in EU law, the book highlights the importance of transparent judicial reasoning and dialogue between courts and suggests a discursive model for adjudication at the European Court of Justice.

Based on both theory and case law analysis, this interdisciplinary study is an important contribution to the field of European legal reasoning and to the study of multilingualism within EU legal scholarship.

HT @law_book

Filed under: Monographs Tagged: Ashgate, Court decisions, Elina Paunio, European Court of Justice, Habermas in legal communication studies, Judges' legal decision making, Judges' legal language, Judges' legal reasoning, Judicial communication, Legal certainty, Legal certainty and judicial language, Legal certainty and language, Legal certainty and legal language, Legal communication, Legal decision making, Legal language, Legal reasoning, Multilingual judicial communication, Multilingual legal communication



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/paunio-language-discourse-and-reasoning-at-the-european-court-of-justice/

3 Questions You Should Ask Your Associates

Hogwash! Ask your associates questions? Surely, you must be joking. What would you ever want to ask an associate, besides, "Is my coffee ready yet?" or "You call this research?" Associates are to be seen, and not heard! If you...



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via Strategist http://blogs.findlaw.com/strategist/2014/01/3-questions-you-should-ask-your-associates.html

Winkels, Boer, and Plantevin: Creating Context Networks in Dutch Legislation

Professor Dr. Radboud Winkels , Dr. Alexander Boer , and Ivan Plantevin , all of the University of Amsterdam Leibniz Center for Law, have posted Creating Context Networks in Dutch Legislation , a paper presented at JURIX 2013.

Here is the abstract:

This paper describes ongoing research on automatically determining relevant context to display to a user of a legislative portal given the article they are retrieving, purely based on “objective” criteria inferred from the network of sources of law. A first prototype is presented and a formative evaluation of it by legal expert users. Results are promising, but there is room for improvement.

The paper describes research performing using the MetaLex Document Server.

Click here for earlier posts about the MetaLex Document Server.

Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Research findings, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: Alexander Boer, Ivan Plantevin, JURIX 2013, Legal citation networks, Legal citations, Legal content networks, Legal document networks, Legislative citation networks, Legislative content networks, Legislative information systems, MetaLex Document Server, Radboud Winkels



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/winkels-boer-and-plantevin-creating-context-networks-in-dutch-legislation/

Our Favorite Blogging Judge Just Hung Up His Keyboard

It's a sad day for the legal blogosphere. U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Kopf, who delighted us with his frank response to the government shutdown ("tell Congress to go to hell,") and his take on a New York judge's removal...



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via Strategist http://blogs.findlaw.com/strategist/2014/01/our-favorite-blogging-judge-just-hung-up-his-keyboard.html

Top posts on Legal Informatics Blog during 2013

Many thanks to our readers during the past year. Here are the five most-visited posts published on Legal Informatics Blog during 2013:

1. Legal Hacking, Technology, and Innovation Groups


2. Zorn: The Legal Industry 2013


3. 8 March: ReInventLaw Silicon Valley 2013 Conference


4. Harper: Cato’s “Deepbills” Project Advances Government Transparency


5. Debate over legal Bluebook raises issue of copyright in legal citation standards

And here are the five posts published on Legal Informatics Blog before 2013 that received the most visits during 2013:

1. Accessing PACER Cases Free of Charge


2. Legal Problems Arising from Social Media: Selected Resources


3. ICAIL 2013 to Be Held in Rome, 10-14 June 2013


4. Abdel Wahab, Katsh, and Rainey: Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice


5. Mobile Version of Indian Kanoon Available

Many thanks for reading, and best wishes for the New Year. We look forward to another year of covering developments in legal informatics and legal communication in 2014.

Filed under: Administrivia, Lists of resources Tagged: Legal informatics, Legal Informatics Blog



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/top-posts-on-legal-informatics-blog-during-2013/

Citizens’ participation in lawmaking a focus of Participedia ’s 2013 Year in Review

Citizens’ participation in lawmaking is a focus of Michael MacKenzie , Tim Glynn-Burke , and Professor Dr. Archon Fung ‘s new post, Innovations in Participation, 2013: Participedia’s Year in Review , at Challenges to Democracy , published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Three of the cases described in the post concern citizens’ participation in lawmaking.

[Disclosure: I contribute to Participedia -- an online encyclopedia of participatory democracy described in the post -- and I suggested that the Estonia case described below be added to Participedia .]

Here are excerpts from the sections of the post describing those cases:

Estonia — Rahvakogu (People’s Assembly)

This democratic innovation engaged Estonians in a nation-wide discussion about ways to improve their political system. The process combined two different democratic strategies: online engagement and a Deliberation Day event. During the online phase of the process, individuals were encouraged to make suggestions about how to improve the political system in Estonia. Topics included electoral reform, public participation, and the financing of political parties. [...] The suggestions made in the online phase of the project were compiled by a team of analysts and organized into themes.

During the second phase of the process, 500 individuals were randomly selected to participate in a Deliberation Day event, of which 314 attended the event itself. At the Deliberation Day event, participants discussed the pros and cons of each theme that was identified during the online phase of the process, and they identified priorities for political reform. [...]

Finland — Crowdsourcing

Finland is leading the way in policy crowdsourcing. In 2013, the Finnish Ministry for Environment and the Committee for the Future of the Parliament in Finland initiated legislative crowdsourcing to establish a new off-road traffic law. The Finnish government set up an online platform and invited everyone to contribute.

In a first phase about problem mapping, participants were invited to comment and make suggestions on ten broad topics. About 700 participants submitted 340 ideas with 2,600 comments and 19,000 votes in response to those ideas. The input was analyzed and served as the basis for a second phase, in which citizens were invited to come up with solutions for the identified topics and problems. A total of 500 views and ideas were generated in the second phase, with 4000 comments and 25,000 votes from 731 users. The website was visited by more than 14,000 citizens. [...]

Ireland — Constitutional Convention

[...] the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas) initiated a Constitutional Convention with 100 delegates and an eight-point agenda of issues to discuss and propose amendments.

Delegates included a random sample of 66 citizens representative of the Irish population. Another 33 delegates were drawn from Ireland’s political parties, and the last was an independent chairman of the convention. Agenda items were to include reducing the president’s term to five years; reduce the voting age to 17; same-sex marriage; and amending the clause on the role of women in the home and encourage greater participation of women in public life.

The Convention meets on Saturdays within a 12 month period. Members are briefed prior to the formal deliberations, and a panel of academics and constitutional lawyers provide guidance. The Convention reaches a wider population via a website that allows users to submit proposals for discussion, video-streams the plenary sessions, and publishes related documents and deliberations. Matters are decided by majority vote of members present, and Parliament has to respond within four months. If it agrees with a recommendation, it must legislate a referendum to amend the Constitution. [...]

For more details, please see the complete post.

Click here for our earlier post about Finland’s traffic law crowdsourcing project.

For earlier posts about Finland’s Open Ministry crowdsourced lawmaking system, please see here and here.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Archon Fung, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Challenges to Democracy, Challenges to Democracy Blog, Citizens' legal communication, Citizens' legal deliberation, Citizens' participation in amending a constitution, Citizens' participation in lawmaking, Citizens' participation in legal drafting, Citizens' participation in legislative drafting, Constitutional law information systems, Estonia, Hélène Landemore, Ireland Constitutional Convention, Irish Constitutional Convention, Joukkoistamista Suomessa, Legal communication, Legal crowdsourcing, Legal deliberation, Legislative crowdsourcing, Michael MacKenzie, Online legal communication, Participedia, Rahvakogu, Sivusto maastoliikennelakiprosessista, suomijoukkoistaa, Tanja Aitamurto, Tim Glynn-Burke



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/citizens-participation-in-lawmaking-a-focus-of-participedia-s-2013-year-in-review/