In this webinar, LII Co-Directors Sara Frug and Craig Newton will help attendees understand various nuances in the codification of federal statutes and regulations, as well as identify issues recently or currently in litigation regarding when and how governments place private works into the public domain by incorporating them into statutes or regulations. Sara will discuss the process by which finalized statutes and regulations move from what is approved by governmental authority to the form, format and features that the bar and the public see when conducting research on LII, Justia, or for-profit legal research platforms like Fastcase, Westlaw, or Lexis. Craig will then discuss both recently decided and also pending litigation that may define clearer rules for what happens when private entities claim copyright on materials that become part of the public law that citizens are presumed to know. Lastly, the webinar will touch on the implications of these issues not just for today’s legal research tools, but also for the AI-powered applications that might assist lawyers in the near future.
- Introductory Overview
- About Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII), its mission, and its history
- An overview of how laws and legal resources get online
- How Federal Statutes & Regulations Get Into Legal Research Platforms
- Congress, Public Laws, and the U.S. Code
- Electronic dissemination and organization of enacted statutes
- The Executive Agencies and the Rulemaking Process
- The Federal Register
- Finalized Regulations and the eCFR
- State laws and regulations: a separate challenge
- Copyright and Public Access to the Law
- The Government Edicts Doctrine
- Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org
- Incorporation by reference: model codes and private standards
- American Society for Testing and Materials v. Public.Resource.Org
- UpCodes cases
- Do commercial legal publishers face antitrust liability when they exclude competitors from licensing primary legal materials?
- Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence
- Ramifications for Today and Tomorrow
- Governmental and other free websites for accessing statutes and regulations
- The impact of open access to legal materials on AI-powered legal research tools
- Questions & Answers
*CLE credit is only available to Justia Connect Pros. Not a Pro? Upgrade today>>
Status: Approved
Credits: 1.0 General
Earn Credit Until: September 07, 2025
Status: Approved
Credits: 1.0 General
Difficulty: All Levels
Earn Credit Until: December 31, 2024
Status: Approved
Credits: 1.0 General
Earn Credit Until: April 05, 2025
Status: Approved
Credits: 1.0 General
Earn Credit Until: January 31, 2025
This presentation is approved for one hour of General CLE credit in California, South Carolina (all levels), and North Carolina. This course has been approved for Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit by the State Bar of Texas Committee on MCLE in the amount of 1.0 credit hours.
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Note that CLE credit, including partial credit, cannot be earned outside of the relevant accreditation period. To earn credit for a course, a lawyer must watch the entire course within the relevant accreditation period. Lawyers who have viewed a presentation multiple times may not be able to claim credit in their jurisdiction more than once. Justia reserves the right, at its discretion, to grant an attendee partial or no credit, in accordance with viewing duration and other methods of verifying course completion.
At this time, Justia only offers CLE courses officially accredited in certain states. Lawyers may generate a generic attendance certificate to self-submit credit in their own jurisdiction, but Justia does not guarantee that lawyers will receive their desired CLE credit through the self-submission or reciprocity process.
The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School
The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School
