A Problem of Definition?

Nick’s most recent post on the question of contributions raises some interesting points, and I think shows that we need to strip the ‘Free Legal Web’ back to its irreducible core, and find out exactly what we think it should mean. But first, to respond to some of Nick’s points:

We already have a substantial body of authored contributions being made on blogs in particular. Nearly Legal himself has been blogging intelligent legal commentary for over 2 years; he has now also attracted joint contributors and these collective comtributions – CC licensed – now form part of the free legal web. Transform this and all similar resources to the Free Legal Web – ie repurpose them in creative ways (with permission) – and most contributions will look after themselves.

As good as Nearly Legal’s blog is, or any other specialist law blog, it cannot hope to compete with the the articles, case commentaries, and so on found in bona fide legal journals, and monographs. Academics and practitioners will continue to publish in them, and publishers will continue to make profit from them. It is (perhaps unfortunately) a mutually profitable relationship.

There’s reason to be optimistic too about leveraging law firm publications. These articles are written to be read, to reflect well on the authors and their firms and to gain them business.

The more informal/less influential practice newsletters published by firms may be useful to some degree, but I cannot see them being key to this initiative. Nobody cites those newsletters, so why should people use the Free Legal Web for research purposes, or visit it at all, if that is all it contains?

I think there are many issues here, but one of the first things that needs to be addressed is: what is the Free Legal Web? There seems to be a generally-held view (including my own), based on the comments of Nearly Legal, Geeklawyer and others, that a true ‘wikipedia of English law’ will be just that – the sum total of all knowledge and learning that English law has to offer. But that cannot be right; there can be no competition with the key texts in any area of law. Wikipedia itself is a different beast to a law Wikipedia. Why would anyone go to, and cite, the Free Legal Web’s entry on non-delivery of goods, when you could look up the section in Benjamin on Sale? Why look at the user-generated piece on choice of law in contract, when you could skim through Dicey & Morris? These will be the texts that judges use, that advocates read to inform their arguments, and that academics write. What, then, is the incentive to contribute to the Free Legal Web?

So, we may have to aim for something less, at least at first. Nick’s post seems to envisage the pooling together of all current commentary on blogs and in newsletters, and that seems eminently feasible. So, a case is published by OPSI and repurposed in to the Free Legal Web; a blog or law firm comments, and that is fed into the FLW as well, semantically linked to the case. Excellent. If the Free Legal Web is to work, then that may be where the battlelines have to be drawn.

Who will contribute? on what platform?

Though supporters, both Geeklawyer on his blog and Nearly Legal in a recent comment are sceptical of our chances for success, referring to difficulty attracting contributions.

We already have a substantial body of authored contributions being made on blogs in particular. Nearly Legal himself has been blogging intelligent legal commentary for over 2 years; he has now also attracted joint contributors and these collective comtributions – CC licensed – now form part of the free legal web. Transform this and all similar resources to the Free Legal Web – ie repurpose them in creative ways (with permission) – and most contributions will look after themselves.

There’s reason to be optimistic too about leveraging law firm publications. These articles are written to be read, to reflect well on the authors and their firms and to gain them business. If their headlines and excerpts were syndicated by RSS, the FLW could give them wider, well-targeted, explicitly linked and attributed exposure and deliver the Google juice they desire.

Geeklawyer points to the less than succesful attempts by others to set up specialist law wikis. But although Susskind’s vision does refer to “a Wikipedia of English law”, I’m pretty certain he was using  the term loosely in a generic sense. It would be a big mistake for us to think no further than using standard wiki software to ape Wikipedia for the law; crazy to suggest that an encyclopedia of UK law would magically emerge from scratch, user-generated contributions. The scale is massively smaller than Wikipedia, the level of authority needed for content is much higher; and the reasons users will contribute will be different.

If Geeklawyer sounds sceptical it’s because he is but not because he don’t support the vision. It could work, it needs to work and it may. But it is a big job.

Better than the rest

I’ve submitted the idea to Show Us a Better Way.

Tell us about your data

Francis Irving has posted about the initiative on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog. His main point is that “this project will need a vast amount of basic legal information to be open first” and that, so far, legislation is the only data set approaching openness.

Of course it would be dandy if all PSI were truly open – ie not just free access and freely re-usable but directly addressable and accessible via APIs etc. Indications are that we will have this for legislation soon, but for case law and other official documents that may be a long time coming. And most privately-authored content will, by definition, never be open.

But I’m a great believer in the power of metadata – ie data about data – and the white knight to the rescue here is RSS. Whoever you are, tell us about your data via rich RSS feeds and we can build the framework of the Free Legal Web with that, respecting your rights and reservations and leaving the content where it is. We may need to convince you that it’s in your interest to do so – but that’s for another post.

Barcamp signup

All – It’s important you make clear in your comments on the Barcamp page if you are signing up to the Barcamp – ie confirming your attendance (and participation). Something like “Count me in” or “I’ll be there” is clear! Offers of help etc may be ambiguous. Additional comments and questions relating to the Barcamp are of course welcome, and especially offers to help organise it or sponsor lunch or any kit we may require.

Help from the top

The man at the top, Cabinet Office Minister for Transformational Government Tom Watson. is on the case!

I think I can help and I’m going to talk to colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the power of information team to see what can be done to give support.

Challenges Ahead for the Free Legal Web

There is, it seems, something of a dichotomy between thought and action when discussing the Free Legal Web; the idea itself is remarkably (even brilliantly) simple, but any possible implementation plan, at first blush, looks to be hopelessly complex.  I should quickly add that I am a firm supporter of the idea in principle, and I imagine most of you reading this will be too. So it comes down to how thought will be translated into action. The core issues to be discussed at Barcamp go to the heart of this, and to my mind the most troublesome challenges ahead are:

• Data access issues — What resources are available and what are the barriers to their re-use?
• Editorial/UGC issues — For whom/by whom? Accuracy and authenticity? An “acceptable bargain”?

I am looking forward to seeing how those challenges can be met, and overcome. Oh, and has anyone thought of a name as yet? My unimaginative, tired brain suggested ‘Legalpedia’, but a domain name search reveals the suggestion is not an original one. ‘Lawpus’ (a conflation of ‘Law’ and ‘Corpus’) is available, but it doesn’t quite have the right ring to it…

What’s your vision?

Day one ends with not a lot of action; but a few encouraging signups and a great response from Enquiring Minds – more like that here on this blog would get us moving.

Delighted to support this project

While I blog away about the inane, the profane and, at times, the downright insane – this project set up by Nick could be a very useful resource and I am delighted to be able to support it in a very modest way.  I shall, of course, confine myself to the more sane and important issues of the day when I write on here.

Barcamp, London, October

The first key stage in progressing the project will be a Barcamp to be held in London on Saturday 18 October – full details are on the Barcamp page. Barcamps are fora at which all attendees participate; the agenda is decided at the opening session on the day.

Thanks to John Sheridan of OPSI for sponsoring the venue and coffees.

More help will be needed!