Last week was both very very busy, and yet I don’t feel like I got a lot done.

Started in on the case law review.  Holy cats, it’s so much worse than I thought it would be! I was expecting the unofficial, unauthenticated PDFs, but I was not expecting the really limited scope of the posted cases, the INABILITY TO EVEN SEARCH, or the fact that some states decided that once it was published by a print commercial journal, there was no need to make it available online anymore.

Last week was also when the Berkman Center kicked off activities and I got to meet all the other people connected to it.  Words can’t quite express how neat it all was.  Everyone is very smart, and dedicated and sincere.  I have a feeling I’m going to learn a lot from all of them.

Finally, on Friday I went down to DC for Transparency Camp. It was very interesting and I’m glad I made the somewhat spontaneous decision to go.  There’s not a lot of overlap between the “open law” and “open government” people, at least it doesn’t feel like it to me.  But, if law is data, and I believe it is, I think there’s a lot to be learned from each other.    Probably the biggest thing for me to come out of this unconference was the idea that I should take a look at state’s open data laws and portals.  Maybe they are the future of distribution of legal information since the creating bodies are seemingly having such a terrible time of it.

It also has occurred to me that in looking at law as data, there may be some more sticks (instead of just carrots) that can be used to encourage/force government bodies to open up their legal information.  Because that’s a big hurdle – convincing people in the government to do it and trying to get other people to join the open law movement. Unfortunately saying “it’s the right thing to do” or “access to justice” isn’t enough, sadly.  I’d like to be able to say “oh, actually you’re supposed to because of x,y,z requirements.”

I’ve sort of rededicated myself to/decided that looking into the law and policy behind open legal information is going to be an important piece of this year’s work.   I came up with a rough outline last night, but of course I have forgotten it right now as I write this.