Could An Open Source Ecosystem Be Constructed for Government Distribution and Publication of Legal Materials?

An estimated 650 law librarians, law professors, government officials, judges and legal information industry representatives attended 15 LAW.GOV workshops held across the country earlier this year. The culmination was the recent release of  LAW.GOV's 10 core principles. See NLJ's Law document transparency project defines its terms. As Fastcase CEO Ed Walters points out in Why .Gov is at the *End* of Law.Gov: Effort Needs Innovators First, Then Government, To Thrive  a wide range of individuals representing diverse interests participated in LAW.GOV workshop sessions. Following up on LLB's On Extending the Outreach for LAW.GOV's Support: The Incubation Process Has Begun, this week we are featuring LAW.GOV. videos of some. [JH]

This May 26, 2010 LAW.GOV workshop session at Google's Washington, D.C. office addresses open source procurement and standards. Could a reference implementation or open source ecosystem be constructed to help the many jurisdictions that produce American primary legal materials?

Co-Convenors:

• Vinton G. Cerf
• James Stogdill, Accenture

Participants:

• John Scott, Mercury Federal Systems
• Gunnar Hellekson, Red Hat
• Brian Behlendorf, Collaboration Advisor, HHS (Contractor)
• Ian Koenig, LexisNexis
• Mike Walsh, Government Printing Office
• Ed Walters, Fastcase