http://www.slaw.ca/2011/07/11/%E2%80%9Conly-a-fool-would-make-predictions%E2%80%94especially-about-the-future%E2%80%9D/

and yes, looseleaf has become almost dishonest, with its hidden cost and its purpose only to drag out legacy profits.

I’m a big fan of using the Kindle to replace printing, though. I find it’s good for getting a non-screen copy of something you’re working on for proof reading.

That’s a really useful piece – thank you to Sir Henry Brooke for sharing so much detail about BAILLI’s origin and workings. It also clarified a number points. Contrary to an FoI response from the Ministry of Justice earlier this year, it appears other people can access the same data at source. In that FoI they had stated:

Q 3: Is the information supplied to BAILII also available to other
publishers on the same basis?
A 3: No, the information is available free of charge via the BAILII website. We have scheduled this requirement to be re-tendered in 2012.
Q 4. 4. If so, what is the process whereby other publishers may obtain
the data? If not, why not?
A 4. See response to question 3
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/73838/response/189463/attach/html/3/FOI%2070820%20Mark%20Goodge%20response%20290611.doc.html

But Sir Henry Brooke says: “The circulation list for new judgments is not restricted to BAILII, and BAILII does not have any exclusive right to receive them.”

BAILII is a tremendous resource and I cannot imagine doing legal research without it. However, I do think some of the situations described in this piece are unsatisfactory, due to the MoJ’s / HMCTS administration of data rather than BAILII’s.

It seems to me very inadequate that copyright of all judgments should not be held by the Crown and available for free and widespread distribution. It should not require expensive litigation to establish this. The government should consider sharing the judgments under an Open Government Licence.

Secondly, I think the courts should take responsibility for errors. [Sir Henry reports: "I would not like to be a publisher who republishes one of these judgments without consent and without the benefit of such an indemnity.] In a digital age, it seems impracticable to expect to correct every occurrence of an error that has already been distributed and made publicly available. Courts should publish judgments on their own sites, properly redacted to protect confidentiality, and searchable, indexable and reproducible by third parties. I do think that greater value could be added to free legal research services with the development of new tools, such as automated alert services and powerful search tools.

I don’t think raising these concerns should detract from the excellent work that BAILII does (and certainly not cast it as a “villain”), but suggest that making judgments more useful and usable is the next step in opening up law online. And then we can tackle other parts of the legal system: case listings, claim forms…

Twitter is O.K. but it’s over-simplification is starting to annoy some people and seems to be more of a one-way haven for business spam.