Recommendation 8

“To improve government’s responsiveness to demand for public sector information, by July 2008 OPSI should create a web-based channel to gather and assess requests for publication of public sector information.”

http://barcamp.org/BarCampPOIR8 on *12th January 2008*,
Spey & Ness Rooms, City Inn, 30 John Islip Street, Westminster, London.

From an announcement of the event:

Since beginning to accept requests for re-using PSI through the discussion forum on the OPSI website, we’ve been given some very helpful feedback by users and learnt quite a few lessons about how the eventual service will need to work. The forums have served a useful purpose these few months but are clearly insufficient going forwards.

We’ve opted for a BarCamp format as the most open, participative and democratic way to engage with potential re-users. We’ve a venue arranged and an outline agenda – but really we would like the re-user community to shape the event.

Way cool.

The JISC IPR Consultancy was started in October 2005 to provide expert advice to JISC in the area of intellectual property rights. IPR Consultants Naomi Korn and Charles Oppenheim talked to Sara Hassen, JISC Communications Manager, in a Skype interview about the interesting challenges we will face related to IPR in the education sector associated with the use of Web 2.0 & Social Software, and issues we need to consider and address.

[Link]

Cybermuseology: conveying culture

Are new technologies useful tools for conveying culture? If you want to find out more about innovative solutions to disseminate knowledge related to collections, then this seminar is for you. Speakers will focus on online interactive applications to show how to convey collections related knowledge to the public. Several technologies will be introduced to illustrate the development of collections-based knowledge through online interactive tools.

Full programme available here.

I got an invite to join Texas Bar Circle from the State Bar of Texas, of which I am a member.
The service is a product of affinitycircles.com The invite states:

The State Bar of Texas is excited to introduce Texas Bar Circle, a new networking tool. Texas Bar Circle is a secure online social and professional network exclusively for licensed Texas attorneys – the first network of its kind by a bar association.

Texas Bar Circle helps you find colleagues with similar interests, hobbies, or professional aspirations and communicate with them in a number of simple, secure, and valuable ways.

Once you log in and join Texas Bar Circle, you can:
Network with other Texas lawyers about career and business opportunities
Re-connect with old classmates and friends
Share photos and blogs in a secure environment
Share information or seek advice by messaging your network
Hear about events going on in your area put on by members you know
Start groups to stay in touch with attorneys in your area
And much, much more!

I guess that the idea is for attorneys to network without having to worry about clients (or potential clients) seeing all of their personal info. I’m not sure what the advantage really is over something like Facebook, which has a ton of privacy settings allowing for a great deal of control over your profile. I joined, and will report about it more in the future.

OwnTerms is designed as a repository for “boilerplate” legal documents: those that every web site, startup, or entrepreneur needs but doesn’t want to draft in a lawyer for.

All the documents on OwnTerms are licensed under a Creative Commons license, enabling anyone to take them and edit them for their own use provided certain conditions are met.

A privacy policy that I drafted for the Personality Rights Database and then later adapted to my WordPress blog websites (twitchgamer and opencontentlawyer) is now up as Privacy Policy2 and is available here.

The policy is in the public domain, but if you’d like the comfort of a CC licence, then please use the CC-BY Scotland licence.

All of this is of course with the usual caveat — I am actually a lawyer but I’m not YOUR lawyer. This form is not legal advice.

the site is intended to serve as a forum for referrals, discussion of professional issues and information-sharing

I actually use the ABA’s excellent email discussion list SOLOSEZ for this kind of information gathering. But discussion lists are somewhat limited, and it will be good to see if LawLink can develop into the kind of community that makes SOLOSEZ such a wonderful resource.

The goal is to concentrate on procedure (in both the court of appeals and the district courts) but not to cover substance. We aren’t interested in comments about the meaning of ERISA or the Internal Revenue Code and will take down any pages that go beyond the scope of practice and procedure (including jurisdiction).

So only practice and procedure are the goal of the wiki, which is an appropriate goal for a wiki by a court. Carolyn Elefant mentions in her Law.com post on how she sees the wiki being used:

What a terrific tool, both for lawyers who don’t know what they’re doing, as well as for lawyers who do. Experienced lawyers can use the wiki to share procedural tips and, thus, place their name in circulation as resident experts, which can generate clients. And lawyers who are first-timers can use the wiki as a resource to figure out how to file an appeal without committing malpractice or looking foolish. My only question is, how long until other circuit courts follow suit?

Undoubtedly this idea — lawyers sharing in a collaborative environment to improve practice — fuels the rationale behind the 7th Circuit putting up the site. I’m sure at least part of the goal is to reduce common errors that the court has to deal with on the part of new appellate lawyers, and thus reduce the court’s workload (or at least streamline it). I just wonder how much people are going to use it as a wiki, and not just as a graphical version of the Practitioner’s Handbook (pdf file).

The Practitioner’s Handbook, a guide produced by the 7th Circuit for attorneys handling appeals in the Circuit, appears to be the only content (or at least the main content) on the wiki. The Handbook, rather than the wiki, is the real tool that allows newbie appellate lawyers “to figure out how to file an appeal without committing malpractice or looking foolish”. The Handbook is dated from 2003, and so this might be a way to collaboratively note changes between official versions, or could, conceivably, supplant the Handbook in the future.

I think that the real problem is getting people to contribute. Lawyers are very busy people, and I’m not sure how many of the appellate lawyers in the 7th Circuit are going to pitch in to create some amazing resource. Think about the audience demographic for a minute: Lawyers in three states — Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin — who practice in federal court and who handle the appeals in their federal cases. You then have to slice out of this pool of 7th Circuit appellate lawyers those who have time, are familiar with a wiki (and editing one), and desire to contribute.

This isn’t to say that I believe that collaborative tools couldn’t help lawyers out in their practice before the 7th Circuit (and elsewhere). I’m just not sure that a wiki is the right way to do it, or more precisely, not simply a wiki version of the Practitioner’s Handbook. Perhaps paying someone to monitor and build up the community behind the wiki could be an additional step — an active and dedicated community is after all how wikis work. Perhaps some other social networking tools to help build the community in the first place, though probably not a Myspace for 7th Circuit Appellate lawyers. Rather than assuming that “If you build a wiki, they will come”, find out what your audience wants, and how they want to access it. Looking at the recent changes in the wiki, confirms that, at least as of now, the few edits that are present are extremely minor. [Link to recent changes].

It will, however, be one to watch. See the discussion on technorati.

Other coverage at Robert Ambrogi’s blog, and original story in the National Law Journal (subscription required).