Anne E. Burnett, Foreign & International Law Librarian University of Georgia School of Law Timothy L. Coggins, Associate Dean & Professor of Law University of Richmond School of Law

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 Purpose: The Committee serves to advance the law library profession's principles concerning public information provided on government web sites and to promote uniformity in citation reform.  Charge: The Committee shall use principles of the law library profession to identify web site characteristics and citation rules that represent best practices, and to encourage all branches of government to apply these principles in the creation and maintenance of electronic legal information. These principles include permanent public access, authenticity, citizen usability, uniformity of citation consistent with AALL policy, comprehensiveness and suitability for legal research, and they reflect the special concerns and unique competencies of law librarians.  Action Plan:

 “Instead of relying on the voodoo information taken from the Internet, Plaintiff must hunt for hard copy back-up documentation in admissible form ….” ◦ St. Clair v. Johnny’s Oyster & Shrimp, Inc., 76 F. Supp. 2d 773 (S.D. Tex. 1999)

 American Association of Law Libraries ◦ Permanent public access report (2003) ◦ President Claire Germain: How trustworthy are state-level primary legal resources on the Web? ◦ State-by-State Report (2007 & updates)   ◦ National Summit on Digital Legal Information   Conclusions – Legal Initiatives  Draft model legislation and/or proposed amendments to rules of evidence  Study Committee through NCCUSL  Best practices manual?  National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ◦ Study Committee organized – Study Committee on Authentication of Online State Legal Materials ◦ Drafting Committee created – Uniform Authentication and Preservation of State Electronic Legal Materials Act (renamed Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act)

 Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act  March 2011 Post Committee Meeting Draft – Clean March 2011 Post Committee Meeting Draft – Clean  March 2011 Post Committee Meeting Draft – Redline March 2011 Post Committee Meeting Draft – Redline  February 2011 Draft – Replace “legal materials” with “law” (pdf only) February 2011 Draft – Replace “legal materials” with “law”  February 2011 Draft with Proposals (pdf only) February 2011 Draft with Proposals  February 2011 Issues Memorandum (pdf only) February 2011 Issues Memorandum  February 2011 Draft with Accepted Changes from November 2010 Meeting February 2011 Draft with Accepted Changes from November 2010 Meeting  February 2011 Redline Draft – Changes from November 2010 Meeting (pdf only) February 2011 Redline Draft – Changes from November 2010 Meeting  February 2011 Meeting Agenda (pdf only) February 2011 Meeting Agenda  November 2010 Committee Meeting Report (pdf only) November 2010 Committee Meeting Report  November 2010 Meeting Agenda (pdf only) November 2010 Meeting Agenda  November 2010 Issues Memorandum (pdf only) November 2010 Issues Memorandum  November 2010 Meeting Draft - Clean (pdf only) November 2010 Meeting Draft - Clean  November 2010 Meeting Draft - Redline (pdf only) November 2010 Meeting Draft - Redline  2010 Annual Meeting Draft 2010 Annual Meeting Draft  Issues Memorandum for 2010 Annual Meeting Draft (pdf only) Issues Memorandum for 2010 Annual Meeting Draft  May 2010 Interim Draft May 2010 Interim Draft  April 2010 Interim Draft April 2010 Interim Draft  March 2010 Interim Draft March 2010 Interim Draft  March 2010 Redline Draft March 2010 Redline Draft  March 2010 Committee Meeting Agenda (pdf only) March 2010 Committee Meeting Agenda  March 2010 Committee Meeting Issues Memorandum (pdf only) March 2010 Committee Meeting Issues Memorandum  March 2010 Meeting Draft March 2010 Meeting Draft  December 2009 Redline Draft December 2009 Redline Draft  2010 Prefatory Note Draft (pdf only) 2010 Prefatory Note Draft  Conference Call Minutes, 2009 October 29 (pdf only) Conference Call Minutes, 2009 October 29  Initial Draft, 2009 April 30 (pdf only) Initial Draft, 2009 April 30  Study Committee Report, 2009 April 30 (pdf only) Study Committee Report, 2009 April 30

 Uniform: ◦ Legislatures are urged to adopt Uniform Acts exactly as written to “promote uniformity in the law among the states.”  Model: ◦ Model Acts are designed to serve as guideline legislation, which states can borrow from or adapt to suit their individual needs and conditions.  Barbara Bintliff (law librarian & reporter of the Drafting Committee) ◦ “WOW! We’re a uniform act!”

 Electronic: electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities  Legal material: Constitution; legislative enactment; state code; rule; agency decision; judicial decision; state court rules  Official publisher: agency; legislature; state court  Publish: to display, present, or release to the public  Record: “tangible” medium; stored in electronic or other medium; retrievable in perceivable form  State: U.S. state, D.C., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands; any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.

 Legal material only in electronic record ◦ Shall designate the electronic record as official, and ◦ Shall meet requirements of ELMA about authentication, preservation, and public access  Legal material in a record other than an electronic record ◦ May designate electronic record as official ◦ If requirements of sections 5, 7 & 8 are met

 GPO White Paper (2005) ◦ Content verified by a government entity to be complete and unaltered when compared to the version approved or published by the content originator; ◦ Bears a certificate or mark that conveys information as to its certification … authentic text is able to be authenticated, which means the particular text in question can be validated; ◦ “[I]t is what it claims to be.”  ARJD Principles (2007; revised 2008) ◦ Not designated ‘official’ unless …  (1) authenticated by encryption, digital signature, or some other computerized process to safeguard them from illegal tampering, and  (2) permanent in that they are impervious to corruption

 Electronic record designated as official under previous section  Shall authenticate the record  How? ◦ “… by providing a method for users to determine that the record is unaltered from the one published by the publisher”

 Presumed to be an accurate copy of the legal material  Applies to legal material in an electronic record designated as official by another state that has adopted this [act].

 Shall provide for the preservation, electronically or non- electronically, of a record that is or was designated as official  Preserved in an electronic record, official publisher shall ◦ Ensure the integrity of the record ◦ Provide for back-up and disaster recovery of the record; and ◦ Ensure the continuing usability of the material

 Legal material in an electronic record that is required to be preserved under previous section  Official publisher shall ◦ Ensure that the material is reasonably available ◦ On a permanent basis ◦ For use by the public

 Official publisher shall consider – ◦ Standards and practices of other jurisdictions ◦ Most recent standards – preservation of, authentication of, and public access to legal material … as promulgated by national standard-setting bodies ◦ Needs of users of legal material in an electronic record ◦ Views of governmental officials and entities and other interested persons

 Urge the Committee to – ◦ Set the highest bar for authenticity and verification of state law websites ◦ Maintain the core printed products required now in state law because reliable archival systems are not what they should be and because the public lacks uniform access to digital products ◦ Ensure that government publishers provide core data in an open network manner ◦ Work to restrict government publishers from holding copyrights in core legal materials.

 Drafting Committee ◦ Finalize work ◦ Prepare final draft  NCCUSL (Uniform Law Commission) ◦ Second reading in July 2011 ◦ Vote up or down  American Bar Association ◦ House of Delegates vote ◦ If approved, then sent to the states  States

 AALL – national activities  AALL – chapters & chapter Government Relations Committees  State library associations  State archivists and preservationists  Other important alliances  One step in that direction: AALL’s efforts to create a national legal inventory

 U.S. Government Printing Office, White Paper: Authentication (Washington, D.C., 2005).  Richard Matthews, The Smart Citizen’s Search for State Law on the Web: AALL Authentication Survey Seeks To Find Out If There Are Official, Authentic Sources?, AALL Spectrum, July 2006, at 20.  Timothy L. Coggins, Virginia Law: It’s Online, But Should You Use It?, Va. Lawyer, June/July 2008, at 35.  Statement of Principles: “Official” On-Line Documents (2007; revised 2008) ◦

 William R. Mills, The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age, 53 N.Y. L. Sch. L. Rev. 917 ( ).  Patrick Ragains, Fixing the Federal Depository Library Program, Am. Libraries, May 2010, at 36.  Letter from American Court and Commercial Newspapers, Inc. to Michele L. Timmons, Chair, Drafting Committee for Authentication and Preservation of State Electronic Legal Materials Act, Feb. 22, 2011 (on file with speaker).  Timothy Coggins & Sally Holterhoff, Authenticating Digital Government Information, in The International Handbook of Government Information Management (Peggy Garvin ed.) (scheduled for publication Spring 2011).