Following up on my last post about net neutrality, this BBC News article gives a very brief synopsis of the major issues and players in the net neutrality debate in the United States. We have AT&T, Verizon, and the Department of Justice on one side versus Microsoft and Google on the other. This debate could decide not only the question of net neutrality, but also, who really does rule the world?
Net Neutrality, Net Diversity, and the Future of Legal Research
The subject of net neutrality came up on Capitol Hill Wednesday, as Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., took on FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras at a reauthorization hearing by the subcommittee on Interstate Commerce [see article in PC Magazine. Dorgan is pushing for net neutrality legislation while the FTC has urged legislators not to rush to action. Without net neutrality, it is argued that, absent regulation, telecom and cable companies will allow communications conglomerates to buy better internet channels to consumers, thereby creating tiered access for content providers.
If the direst predictions about the consequences of net diversity come true, what would happen to online legal research? Would Lexis and Westlaw be able to buy their way into the first tier, thereby relegating all smaller competitors like HeinOnline to the slow, or even the shoulder, lane? Or would the price of admission be too steep even for Lexis and Westlaw? Would local, state and federal governments get a fast lane pass so that primary law services like Oklahoma’s excellent OSCN could still thrive? What would become of academic sites, like Cornell’s LII? Legal researchers have become increasingly dependent on a (roughly) single-tiered internet. How this tale will actually unfold remains to be seen, but law library directors may wish to include the emergence of a tiered internet in their disaster preparedness plans.
Whither neutral citation?
I’ve been reading this week about the birth, death, and possible rebirth of the vendor-neutral citation movement. Proponents believe that neutral citation of judicial opinions in a free web environment will support equal access to justice by putting more legal information into the hands of all lawyers and the public. Without neutral citation, litigants and their attorneys have to consult the commercial Thomson West Reporter System to find proper page references within a cited case in order to comply with court filing requirements.
Peter Martin examined the movement’s progress, or lack thereof, in “Neutral Citation, Court Web Sites, and Access to Authoritative Case Law” in the Spring 2007 issue of Law Library Journal. Martin lamented that the neutral citation system has lost steam of late. The movement emerged in the mid-1990s, with strong support from both the ABA and the AALL. Several states, including my current state of Oklahoma, adopted neutral citation systems that rely on paragraph numbers instead of page numbers as referents. Martin cites several factors for why interest in these systems has waned. Judicial opposition based on the unknowns of the mid-1990s internet, the emergence of free online legal research services for bar members, and loss of interest by the ABA and AALL are among them (Martin 2007,¶44 et seq.).
Ian Gallacher (Syracuse University College of Law) also addresses these points in his article, “Cite Unseen: How Neutral Citation and America’s Law Schools Can Cure Our Strange Devotion to Bibliographical Orthodoxy and the Constriction of Open and Equal Access to the Law” (70 Alb. L. Rev. 491). Gallagher believes that American law schools should take the lead and bring the neutral citation movement back to life. It would not be a small undertaking, but the pioneering efforts of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute and other initiatives suggest that a collaborative venture along these lines could bear fruit.
A lot has changed in the several years since this issue was last seriously considered. More research is done online now than in the reporters section of the law library. It was once unthinkable that a large, prestigious law firm library would send its reporters to offsite storage, but the practice is common now that law lives so comfortably on the internet. The question of why a system based on print pagination is still the only way to cite in most courts may be ripe for revisiting. Authentication of legal information on the web is a related issue that’s not addressed in either of these articles, but stay tuned to Law Librations for more on that topic soon.
