Eldred Examined

Ernie has a great run-down on the petitioners' brief in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Read. Absorb. Repeat.

Courts And Technology

The California Courts Web site reports the following about technology in the state's court system:

Courts allowing fax filing: All

Courts allowing some e-filing: Six

Number of county courts with local Web sites: All

Number of outmoded computers to be replaced in trial courts (2001-02): 6,700

Yesterday, the L.A. County Bar's Appellate Courts Committee hosted a presentation from two lawyers with the state Supreme Court: Greg Wolff, who is Head of Chambers for Justice Moreno (and used to be on Chief Justice George's staff) and David Nyssen, from the Court's central criminal staff. Earlier this year, the Court added its docket to the statewide Appellate Case Information system, so we can now track the status of any pending matter, as well as the issues that led the Court to grant review (see the Court's weekly summaries). It also was clear from yesterday's discussion that the Court's internal workings are getting a boost from technology. While the talk centered primarily on what it takes to get the Court to accept a case (consider this: over nine thousand petitions for review are submitted each year, while just over one hundred are granted) there were several between-the-lines insights about how the Court does its work.

For instance, it sounds like the Justices and their staff primarily are authoring their opinions at the word processor (using Word). They also are set up to track at least the last ten year's worth of filings and dispositions, by issue. In other words, the Court knows at a glance when a petition for review is filed (1) who else has asked the Court to look at the issue, (2) in what context, (3) when, (4) what amicus groups representing various interests have had to say about the Court taking the issue, and (5) what, if anything, the Court has done about the issue to date. I found this, needless to say, fascinating, and saw little reason why the bare bones of this issue-oriented, historical approach to the Court's workload could not also be made available through its Web site. Providing access to this information would improve the quality of petitions for review, and help litigants better assess their chances of getting the Court's attention.

For CA Judges: The Alexandria Law Library

Glen Buries, Staff Attorney to the San Diego Court Superior Court, gave me the go-ahead today to blog about this resource, "Alexandria, a collaboration for the Judiciary." The site is a virtual law library, "dedicated to and designed for the exclusive use of California judges and their in-house counsel. The goal is to centralize [their] legal research needs in a single web portal." Glen co-created the site, using FrontPage, with several colleagues in the California legal community who are acknowledged on the site's "credits" page: "At any point, any one of these people could have closed a door, and the project and this collaboration would have ended. It never happened. This website is dedicated to those who open doors and build bridges."

Alexandria offers a wealth of tools for the California judiciary, including an "Ask Alexandria!" feature and pages devoted to time management and mental health. I'm impressed by the thought that went into centralizing the Web resources a jurist might need close at hand, and by the site's useful, entertaining and attractive format. Alexandria also rounds up links to the state's regional documents available online, "such as Municipal Codes, City Charters and Administrative Codes." As Chuck bemoaned recently, these things can be tough to track down. (FindLaw also has an excellent link list for these sorts of materials.) Congratulations to Glen and his friends for helping integrate the Web a part of the judicial library.

Fish Out Of Water - The CARP Dies

"The United States Copyright Office on Tuesday rejected an arbitration panel ruling on Webcasting royalty rates, a decision that is sure to rankle the recording industry and bring smiles to the face of Internet radio executives nationwide." [Via Internet News, "25 minutes ago," says Google News]

More from the Librarian of Congress: "The Register of Copyrights recommends, and the Librarian agrees, that the CARP's determination must be rejected. A final decision will be issued no later than June 20, 2002." 'Scuse me, I'm going to tune in some Internet Radio.

*Chortle*

"First thing we do, we blog all the lawyers." [Jenny, on Radio for Lawyers] All right guys, get to it, don't make me come download that software!

(Fast forward to March, 2003, husband and I readying for taxes:
"What was this for?"
"Something called Radio, I use it for work... "
"Don't tell me - you're blogging with it, aren't you?"
"I prefer to think of it as hyper-organizational knowledge management and aggregation meets some fine colleagues and a few unapologetic degenerates for a drink and lively banter."
"Fine. But I'm golf bound during the audit.")