J-3 Public Access to the Law in the YaOogle Age

Recent studies indicate that many government data sources are essentially inaccessible to the general public, while others that are accessible contain nomadic formatting, making it difficult to search and find information. Search engines like Google and Yahoo (YaOogle), and private third-party organizations, such as OMB Watch, have revolutionized the search for information and have achieved functionality the government has thus far failed to achieve. Savvy lawyers, librarians and law students alike are increasingly using these search engines and other open access sources to find important government information. Panelists will argue and demonstrate that, in this “YaOogle Age,” we all can participate in the promotion of, and public access to, legal information. Professor of Law Michael W. Carroll, a founding member of Creative Commons, Inc., will discuss his efforts to encourage legal sharing of creative and other copyrighted works. Attorney Alan D. Sugarman, who successfully challenged West
Publishing Company’s assertions of copyright in the enhanced text of West’s versions of court opinions, will discuss the practical and legal steps, including a public domain citation system, that need to be taken to make court opinions readily available. The program will explore how the federal judiciary can serve as a model for how legal information could be distributed in a way that can be read by feed readers and search engines, and downloaded in bulk by the public.