Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

A Closer Look At WestlawNext

WestlawNext was recently introduced  to a Chicago audience at a gala breakfast presentation here in Chicago. A key point the speaker made was that a detailed examination and analysis of user behaviors, in addition to user interviews, had been employed in redesigning the Westlaw interface and search engine. Such a customer focus seems to have provided opportunities for significant improvements and enhancements to the online legal research process.

While the interface has been significantly simplified, the search engine behind it has powerful under-the-hood algorithms at work. In the words of the WestlawNext brochure, "The key is how we integrate intelligent information from analysis of each case by West attorney-editors, together with research history on the cases most cited, printed, and linked to, for your issue ..."

How well this may work in practice is evaluated by lawyer and blogger, Robert Ambrogi, in an article in the current issue of Law Technology News, "A Great Leap Forward". He examines many of the new features and comes up with a very positive assessment. "...WestlawNext is elegant, agile, easy to use, more precise, truly intelligent and intuitive. But behind the scenes, it has remarkably complex and powerful technology."

Not much has been disclosed about pricing for the new interface. While Mr. Ambrogi's review indicated greater efficiencies with WestlawNext, it may take additional information gathering over time, to objectively assess ROI. Will there be a beneficial trade off between the new premium pricing and the increased efficiency of the new product ? The economics are important since a more affordable traditional Westlaw is still available and a new product from competitor, LexisNexis, is just around the corner.

( Actual market place deployment of  WestlawNext, should be sometime this year. )

New GPO Pilot Project For Free Federal Court Opinions

There is good news for users of the Government Printing Office's (GPO) no-fee collection of government information, regarding access to certain federal court opinions. According to a March news release,The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC), has approved  "...a pilot in up to 12 courts to publish federal district and bankruptcy court opinions via the Government Printing Office’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) so members of the public can more easily search across opinions and across courts."

This may be the long sought resumption of a pilot project abruptly stopped back in September 2008, due to a hacking incident that lead to unauthorized downloading of thousands of court documents. However, it appears that the current version of the pilot project may not actually require the use of the Court's PACER document system itself. But it may allow the GPO to host the opinions on their own servers to provide no-registration and no-fee, public access to those federal court opinions. More information re. this pilot should be forthcoming from GPO.

This project only addresses the availability of court opinions.  Other court filings and docket information would still be only available on the courts' for-fee service, PACER. Some District Court web sites post opinions, (See Findlaw District Court page), even including  multiple year archives. But many only have recently filed cases or only selected published opinions, or warn that the online versions should not be relied upon as the official opinion.

Having one official federal government web site that can host multi-year archives, authenticate the decisions, provide permanent URLs and improve searchability, would be a major improvement for public access to such judicial information. Let's hope that the the AOUSC/GPO pilot projects has a positive outcome and that eventually GPO through their new state-of-the-art system, Fdsys, can become the agency that does this.

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Addendum re. public access to federal Appellate Court opinions:

The Cornell Legal Information Institute has an online collection of U.S. Court of Appeals opinions, (roughly from late 90s - present) and provides links the multi-year collections of opinions from these U.S. Courts of Special Jurisdiction :     U.S. Tax Court (Jan. 1999 - present) ,   U.S. Court of Federal Claims,  U.S. Court of Appeals for Armed Forces, U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, U.S. Court of International Trade.

St. Patrick's Day - The Shamrock v. Green Beer

A recent somewhat tongue-in-cheek posting by a professor of theology and religion expresses wariness regarding the continued acceptance of widespread celebration of St. Patrick's Day in the U.S.

In the posting, "Celebrate St. Patrick while it's still legal", Phyllis Zagano wonders how long a nationwide celebration featuring a Christian saint, will remain unchallenged by what she sees as a wave of political correctness in the U.S. She also questions whether St. Patrick's Day can remain above the secularizing forces that have made Santa the symbol for Christmas and the Easter Bunny a symbol for Easter.

But some might argue that the green beer and leprechaun hats have already eclipsed the religious origins of the day. The religious connection may only remain in the name, at least here in the U.S.

The author also makes reference to the ethnic and nationalist underpinnings that are part of the history of St. Patrick's Day. But even some of those can get washed away in the green tide of popular celebration.

However, for the author there is still plenty there that she likes and she wishes us a Happy St. Patrick's Day !

                                                 

DePaul Law Professor Bandes Speaks On "Exclusionary Rule Under The Roberts Court"

Congratulations to Professor Susan Bandes, who gave an excellent talk on Friday, March 12, 2010 at the University of West Virginia Law School on the exclusionary rule in the Roberts Court. You can find a link to a video of the talk below.

Direct link to webcast (55 mins.)
http://lawmediasite.wvu.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=a6a460af2198424cb585bd6972653486

(Hat Tip to Judge Wolfson)

City Council Meeting Videos Now To Be Archived

For two years, Chicago City Council meetings have been streamed live on the web site of the City Clerk, Miguel Del Valle. Most Chicago residents probably are unaware of this service to watch the Council in action  for either educational or entertainment purposes. Now it will be possible to watch previous council meetings that will be archived by the Clerk's office. Right now there are five meetings for 2009 and three for 2010.

At the announcement for the archive, Del Valle said,  “This is just the beginning.” Andy Shaw the executive director of the Better Government Association, would  like to see the videos also made available on city’s cable channels for citizens who may not have ready access to the internet.

The videos probably won't compete with any History Channel programs. But they might help keep our city legislators more accountable, if we are paying attention.

New DePaul Law Journal Sponsors Symposium

New Book,"The Assassination of Fred Hampton", Makes DePaul Law Connection

A new book has been authored by Jeffrey Haas, one of the several lawyers and activists who worked for 13 years to get some justice and accountability for the murders of Black Panther Party members, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and the wounding of others in the apartment on Monroe Street in Chicago on December 4, 1969.

They fought the attempted cover up and helped disclose the deadly FBI Cointelpro Program which in regards to Black groups, intended "to expose, disrupt,misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder. . ." 

One has to question where the "propensity for violence" actually rested. As the final report of the Church Committee said, "Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that. The unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order."

Among the several courageous lawyers and activists who defended the rights of the Black Panthers and who took on the government's covert action program was Judge Warren Wolson, DePaul's present Dean. The book describes some of the key actors who made this protracted struggle possible :

"Many of Chicago’s top criminal defense lawyers volunteered to represent the survivors. James Montgomery, who defended Fred’s codefendant in the Maywood Mob Action case, agreed  to represent Deborah; and Eugene Pincham, probably Chicago’s most prominent criminal defense lawyer, became counsel for Verlina Brewer. Warren and Jo-Anne Wolfson filed appearances for Brenda Harris and Blair Anderson. Warren wore a crew cut, was very calm, and was known for his precise, stilettolike cross-examination, while his red-haired, flamboyant wife Jo-Anne added fire to the defense. Kermit Coleman from (he ACLU’s prison project became Doc’s attorney, and we continued as counsel for Truelock and 1 Harold Bell." (p.102)

Bloomberg Trying TO Break Into Legal Research Big League

Recently the big news in online legal research was Westlaw's release of their new interface, WestlawNext and LexisNexis's announcement that their next-generation interface is also coming soon. (See: New Platforms for Westlaw & Lexis Nexis - The Google-ization of Legal Research ?)

In some of the stories, Bloomberg Law, a new entrant into the commercial legal research market has also been mentioned. It might be worthwhile to take a closer look at this new player. In the information market place, Bloomberg's strengths have been in business and financial information. Trying to compete with the long established Westlaw and LexisNexis is going to be an uphill effort.

Bloomberg has spent a few years developing it's legal research platform and trying to integrate it with their traditional strong suit in business information. Challenges include  cost considerations of whether law firms, their primary market, will be willing or able to pay for a complimentary legal research service, even with  enhanced information content.

It looks like Bloomberg has been doing some pilot projects of their new service in the academic arena. A previous blog posting describes the pilot projects at two law schools, Boston College and Stanford Law School. The authors of the cited article, gave Bloomberg Law a mixed review for content and use.

In addition to the search service, Bloomberg has also been marketing its Bloomberg Law Reports which examine recent legal and regulatory developments covering a wide array of topics. These would seem to compete most directly with the similar alerts that BNA  (Bureau of National Affairs) provides as part of their legal research offerings.

How comprehensive and user-friendly the new service is, will probably be the factors that may get some customers to give Bloomberg Law a try. An early review in June 2009 was mixed but acknowledges that the service is still under construction.

Last month Robert J. Ambrogi writing for Law Technology News, provided a more current and detailed review based on his use of the service. He says that the service does a good job of integrating law and news in a number of ways.The citator is also given high marks. But creation of headnotes and its own numbering system still need more work.

The interface allows both Boolean or plain language queries with post-search filtering. It uses tabs like many browsers to open new documents. Also highlighted are the ability to set alerts from almost any content; a feature called Workspace that allows in-firm sharing of documents; domestic and international docket searching; a collection of practice-area pages.

Abrogi concludes that Boomberg Law has come a long way but it is still evolving and "has a tough sell ahead and a lot of work to complete in the meantime."