Jurisline.com -

A Tangled Web is Woven

For those of you who have not heard, Kendrick Chow and Lee Eichen are two attorneys and the founders of Jurisline (www.jurisline.com). Chow and Eichen formed Jurisline in 1998 with plans to develop a website that would offer the public free access to public documents.

In April, 1999, Lee Eichen entered into a subscription agreement for several of the Lexis Law on Disc legal research CD-ROMs. When he signed the subscription contract, Eichen identified himself as a "sole practitioner" in the space provided for his position/title.

Several months later, Jurisline.com appeared on the World Wide Web, with content very similar in nature to the contents of the Lexis materials. In fact, when the contents of the Lexis CD-ROMs are compared to the "Scope of Coverage" listed on Jurisline, the similarities are striking.

For example, I visited the Lexis.com Bookstore (www.lexis.com) and looked at the table of contents listed for several of the "Code on Disc" products.

The Michie's Alabama Law on Disc offers "Alabama Supreme Court Decisions since 1954, Alabama Court of Appeals Decisions January 1965 to September 1969, Alabama Court of Civil Appeals Decisions since 1969, and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals Decisions since 1969." The Jurisline "Scope of Coverage" for Alabama reads " Supreme Court (mid-1950's through third quarter 1999), Court of Appeals, Court of Criminal Appeals, and Court of Civil Appeals (mid 1960's through third quarter 1999)."

The Lexis Publishing Law on Disc for Arizona offers "Arizona Supreme Court Decisions since January 1898 and Arizona Court of Appeals Decisions since February 1965." The corresponding Jurisline offering is listed as "Supreme Court (late 1890's through third quarter 1999), Court of Appeals (mid 1960's through third quarter 1999.)"

In December 1999, Jurisline filed a Federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Reed Elsevier, Inc., alleging that Lexis limits the "choices of consumers of legal research services...by improperly seeking to prevent potential competitors from copying public documents that Lexis controls." Reed Elsevier's subsidiary, Matthew Bender & Co., in turned filed a lawsuit in New York state court alleging that Jurisline had fraudulently obtained Matthew Bender products (the Law on Disc CD-ROMs) and had used those products to develop "a legal information service in breach of express restrictions in its contracts with Matthew Bender."

Jurisline's contention is that under the Matthew Bender and Hyperlaw v. Westlaw decision (S.D.N.Y., May 19, 1997), data that "begins life in the public domain" (ie., court decisions), "continues to live in the public domain" where ever it may be reproduced or reprinted. In their "Amended Complaint" filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Jurisline readily admits to uploading "only the uncopyrightable public domain information consisting of the of the underlying text of the opinions and statutes." Jurisline then indexed this "core set of data to enable the public to retrieve individual files through a proprietary search engine that Jurisline developed."

(If you are interested in viewing the full complaint, along with many informative articles about the Jurisline situation, be sure to visit T. R. Halvorson's website at www.netins.net/

showcase/trhalvorson/law/jurisline.html.)

Matthew Bender's lawsuit against Jurisline contends that Jurisline committed an act of fraud and breach of contract when Eichen represented himself as a "sole practitioner" to obtain the Law On Disc materials.

Matthew Bender, understandably, has stopped sending new CD-Rom materials to Eichen. Jurisline plans to continue to update its database by obtaining new materials directly from the courts. Maryland's own Court of Appeals and Court of Special Appeals decisions are generally published on their website the same day that they are issued (www.courts.state.md.us). As more state and federal courts provide access to their opinions via the web, this may be entirely possible.

Stay tuned - if nothing else, the year 2000 promises to be an interesting one for legal researchers!

Anne Morrison

Prince George's County Law Library

LLAM ACTIVITIES

LLAM Meetings

January

January's meeting focused on Flexible Work Environments, and considered whether law librarians could possibly work in such scenarios. Our Speaker, Debra McKenzie from Lexis Publishing, defined a "Flexible Work Environment" as one that combines telework and homebased work with a traditional work environment.

Whereas the traditional work environment has typically been production oriented, with workers geographically centered and focused on the manufacturing of specific goods, today's work environment features more "knowledge based" products and services, allowing workers to be based all over the world. As the workforce demographics have changed, the "Quality of Life" for workers has become an important factor. We have begun to see employees demanding more flexibility in their work environments.

With access to technology being more affordable, more employers are allowing, even encouraging telework. In fact, there are over 20 million teleworkers today, with more expected in the future!

Not every job is suited to telework, however. Not all job functions, particularly those of law librarians lend themselves fully to flexible work environments like telecommuting. But will that continue to be the case?

The program attendees broke into three discussion groups, and were asked to consider the following factors: 1) What changes have we as law librarians experienced in our positions during the past five years; 2) What changes have our employers experienced during the past five years; and the final group was asked to 3) Look into the future and "predict" where our positions may take us! The answers to these questions may help us "re-market" ourselves for the workplace of tomorrow.

An interesting discussion ensued as to where the law librarian profession will be, and what our roles might be within our firms. Will law firms be forced to change the way they do business to reflect the changes taking place in their clients' workplaces?

No concrete answers were compiled, particularly because none of us own a Crystal Ball, but the program was indeed an interesting and thought-provoking one!

February

February's meeting was no less interesting. On February 16th, Rachel Jones, the Manager of Professional Education and Training at Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky came to town to share her experiences in providing training programs within the law firm environment.

Rachel Jones was a reference librarian at both a law school and a law firm before taking on her new position, in which she oversees the firm's in-house professional development of attorneys and paralegals and assists with their compliance requirements for continuing legal education.

Although Maryland does not currently require attorneys to attend CLE programs, it is still important for librarians to see that the attorneys in their workplace are trained properly in their use of Lexis, Westlaw, CD-ROM materials, and of course, their intranets and the Internet.

Rachel informed attendees of several good resources for training information and materials, including the American Society for Training and Development (www.astd.org) and Fast Company (www.fastcompany.com).

Ideas for training programs come from a variety of sources. Rachel recommended one of her tips, keeping a daily journal where you would write down five things that you learned during the day. These items may be facts about your patron base, new skills learned in using a database, a new website that you've found on the Internet, or general product tips about legal research products. It often helps to perform a skills/needs assessment of your library users to determine what training is really needed!

Whatever training is performed, Rachel stressed that it is important to follow up on the training a few days or weeks afterward - if your students have not put the skills trained to use in their daily work, then the training may have been for naught!

Anne Morrison

Prince George's County Law Library

A PLEA FOR HELP

Once again, we are asking everyone to search their desk drawers and attics for anything from LLAM history. In sorting through the archives, I realized how many former members have left the state and/or the profession. What we have left are our memories and, when senility sets in, not to mention death, our successors will have little to remember us by.

We are especially sparse for the following years:

1984-85

1986-87

1987-88

1993-94

1994-95

If you have any program notices, minutes of meetings, correspondence, etc., for those years or any others, please send them to me. We are also still looking for photographs. We have received some from Nancy Holden, Anne Morrison and Jean Hessenauer. Some of the rest of you must have others.

In my last plea, I mentioned that we had a complete run of the LLAM Newsletter. Since then, some seem to have disappeared. If you have copies of the following, please send them:

v.4 #3

v.7 #4

v.9 #4

v.14 #3

Thanks for your help.

Beverly Rubenstein

Please send items to:

Beverly Rubenstein

LLAM Archivist

MD Attorney General's Office

200 St. Paul Pl., 18th Floor

Baltimore, MD 21202

Phone: 410-576-6400

Email: brubenstein@oag.state.md.us

Effective February 11, 2000, Sally Miles retired from full time law library employment. Sally asks to please keep her in mind for temporary, part time positions in your libraries. Otherwise, Sally reports that she'll be working as "Sally Homemaker" in Mt. Washington.

We all know that family can keep you busier than Supreme Court Justices, so congratulations, Sally, and best wishes!

Piper on the Move

Effective February 21, 2000, Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe, LLP moved to their new location at 6225 Smith Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21209-3600. The firm's main telephone number is (410) 580-3000, and the main fax number is (410) 580-3001.

Tom Fleming (410)-580-4653

Ronney Manger (410) 580-4655

Michele Banks (410) 580-4650

Earla Croll (410) 580-4651

Susan Leboeuf (410) 580-4654

Viola Williams (410) 580-4657

Zhanea Sheshi (410) 580-4656

Reference Desk (410) 580-3010

New Look / New URL

The Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland School of Law has re-designed its web page. Along with the new look comes a new URL. Please update your links to:

http://www.law.umaryland.edu/Marshall/

Distribution Center

The Lexis Publishing Distribution Center in Puerto Rico will no longer be shipping any Michie products as of April 1, 2000. (No, this is NOT an April Fool's Joke!)

Effective April 1, all "Michie" products will be shipped from the Matthew Bender Distribution Center in Conklin, New York, or directly from Charlottesville, Virginia.

It is hoped that this "move" will greatly enhance the shipping and services of Lexis Publishing products…

COMAR NOW AVAILABLE

ON THE INTERNET!

COMAR, your guide to Maryland State Agency regulations, is now available on a searchable, full text internet web site @ www.dsd.state.md.us.

As the first page of this website explains, the MARYLAND REGISTER, the bi-weekly publication which updates COMAR is under construction and will appear later.

We, in the State of Maryland, can now proudly boast that the four major sources of primary legal authority are now accessible over the Internet.

State Code (http://mlis.state.md.us/cgi-win/web_statutes.exe)

State Regulations (www.dsd.state.md.us)

Court Opinions (from 1995-date)

(www.courts.state.md.us/opinions.html)

and Court Rules

(http://mdrules.westgroup.com/home/mdrules/default.wl)

Mike Miller

Maryland State Law Library

Will UCITA Become Law

in Maryland ?

Harvey Morrell reported on the LLAM Listserv in early February that the Maryland General Assembly is currently considering passage of UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transfer Act. (HB 19/SB 142)

Most library associations are opposed to UCITA because its language appears to favor software developers at the expense of consumers.

Harvey drafted a sample letter in opposition to Maryland's UCITA bills. (A copy of the letter, from which you can create your own to be sent to your MD State Delegates and Senators can be found in this issue on page 12, if you are interested in voicing your personal views on UCITA.)

Every LLAM Member is encouraged to inform themselves about UCITA! If you would like further information about UCITA, be sure to visit the www.4cite.org website.

Just For Fun!

"Justice Joe Roy Spicer of Mississippi earned forty cents an hour sweeping the floors and straightening the desks and shelves. He also emptied the trash, and was generally considered to be a pig when it came to his menial tasks. Justice Hatlee Beech of Texas was the official law librarian, and at fifty cents an hour was the highest paid. He was fastidious with his 'volumes,' and often bickered with Spicer about their care. Justice Finn Yarber, once of the California Supreme Court, was paid twenty cents an hour as a computer technician. His pay was at the bottom of the scale because he knew so little about computers."

Online Project

The Maryland State Archives has undertaken the Archives of Maryland Online Project, which was started by putting the 72 volume Archives of Maryland series published by the Maryland Historical Society online with images of the pages as well as searchable text. The series was transferred to the Maryland State Archives in 1981 and they have continued to add volumes The Archives now has 105 volumes in the series with the eventual goal of putting the complete legal history of the state of Maryland online up to the present day. The Maryland Archives invites LLAM members to link to the project from their websites or provide links in their MARC records. They believe this will prove to be a valuable resource for legal historians and welcome any feedback.

This is an ongoing project and interpretive information will be added as the project progresses. For more information, contact Roger Kizer Ball or visit the Maryland State Archives website at http://www.archivesofmaryland.net.

Roger H. Kizer Ball

Email: rogerhkb@mdarchives.state.md.us

Archives of Maryland On-Line

Maryland State Archives

Annapolis, Maryland 21401

410-260-6417

2000 NATIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH TEACH-IN -- TECHNOLOGY FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM

Are you feeling beleaguered and bewildered in our fast-paced, ever-changing law library environment? Have technological advances outpaced your ability to keep your patrons up to date on all of the new developments? You will be pleased to know that there is one thing in our crazy, mixed-up world that remains constant -- the National Legal Research Teach-In! It is returning in 2000 for its eighth consecutive year!

The 2000 Legal Research Teach-In, organized by the Research Instruction & Patron Services SIS (RIPS-SIS), offers the opportunity to improve the skills of your patrons and showcase your skills as a teacher and information provider. Following the pattern of the past seven years of highly successful Teach-Ins, Teach-In 2000 is scheduled in conjunction with National Library Week (April 9-15, 2000). As in previous years, the Teach-In committee has worked with the West Group and LEXIS-NEXIS to prepare unique instructional and promotional materials. Thanks to generous donations from the two companies, the MATERIALS WILL again BE AVAILABLE AT NO CHARGE. It is a true measure of their commitment to the law library community that both West Group and LEXIS-NEXIS continue to underwrite this activity, as they have since its inception eight years ago.

RESEARCH TRAINING KITS

Topped the "BESTSELLER" list again last year! -- West Group distributed approximately 750 kits to law librarians all over the world! The 2000 Teach-In training kit will cover a wide range of subject areas around the theme, "Technology Training for a New Millennium," bringing together traditional legal resources and the newest electronic sources in one convenient package. The kits are designed to provide that extra assistance to get an instructional program off the ground. They may include pathfinders, research guides, posters, lesson plans, lecture notes, research exercises; a myriad of instructional materials developed by law librarians for use by law librarians. One kit per institution is available free of charge from the West Group. Contact Marketing Support, West Group, by fax 1-800-854-1597 or email mkgsupport@westgroup.com.

Be sure to provide your name, address, institution, telephone number, and, if available, your West Group account number.

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

A BIG HIT from last year is back by popular demand! Over 20,000 notepads were sent out to approximately 525 locations around the United States, Canada, and Australia, setting another new record! Colorful notepads designed with Teach-In committee assistance and produced by LEXIS-NEXIS, can help you promote your 2000 Teach-In activities. These notepads can be used by library staff or given away to patrons as an incentive to participate in your library events. Email or fax requests to Judy Floyd Evans, Director, Librarian Relations Group, LEXIS-NEXIS, at judy.floyd@lexis-nexis.com or 937-865-1585. Be sure to indicate your name, address, and the minimum quantity you need. If deemed necessary, a limit will be imposed in order to accommodate as many requests as possible.

Orders for training kits or promotional materials should be placed by March 10, 2000, so you will receive them in time for your National Library Week events.

Now is the time to make the commitment that your library will conduct some sort of event involving legal research during National Library Week 2000. With the vast amount of materials available to you, it's easy to plan an educational event. If you need more ideas, descriptions of Teach-In kits from previous years can be found on the RIPS-SIS web page at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/. Past years' kits can be obtained through AALL Headquarters. Contact: AALL, 312-939-4764.