Publicizing LAW.GOV's Statement of Principles and Declaration

Hat tip to Paul Lomio for calling attention to the release of the LAW.GOV Principles and Declaration statement on Legal Research Plus at Codifying Commonsense -- the Law.gov Principles. Taking it a step further, I'll be turning the LAW.GOV statement into a poster for display in my little county law library. If interested in doing the same or, for academic law librarians and legal writing profs, if interested in starting off one of your lectures pointing to the hopefully not too distant future of the systematic creation of authenticated, well-formatted legal resources available for bulk distribution covering all primary legal materials in the US, here is a PDF and PNG image file of a screen capture from the LAW.GOV site.

From the Statement:

Adherence to these principles by governmental bodies is not just good for democracy and justice, it will spur innovation and will encourage:

1. Broader use of legal materials in all parts of our education system, including our law schools.
2. Researchers in law schools, universities, and other research institutions to have broader access to bulk data, spurring important research on the functioning of our government.
3. Innovation in the legal information market by reducing barriers to entry.
4. Savings in the government's own cost of providing these materials through adherence to best current practices.
5. Small businesses to understand rules and regulations they must deal with, reducing their costs and increasing their effectiveness.
6. Increased foreign trade by making it easier for our foreign partners to understand our laws.
7. Better access to justice by making legal information more broadly available to citizens.

[JH]