Initiative launched to post legal decisions online for free
The domination of two legal research services (Westlaw and LexisNexis) over the publication of federal and state court decisions is being challenged with an ambitious project to make more than 10 million pages of case law available free online.
So, who is this Robin Hood of the information age?
His name is Carl Malamud, and you can read about him and his latest project in a recent article in the New York Times.
Mr. Malamud, founder of public.resource.org, wants to force the federal government to make information regarding court decisions more accessible to the public. He argues that the control of publishing court rulings subverts the original intent of the framers of the Constitution by making the nation’s laws difficult to obtain by those outside the legal profession.
Nice idea.
The First State Judiciary makes some information available online at no cost; however, you’ll still need to pay one of the private vendors for information on civil actions. At least unless Carl has his way.
Here’s a quick link to the Delaware court opinions online that you can access for free:
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Kudos to Mr. Malamud for his proper analysis. Before he reinvents the wheel, though, google scholar has already got all the caselaw and is quickly ending the reign of westlaw and nexus.
David Bush,
California attorney