COURTS & TECHNOLOGY

On April 17, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court launched its official Web site. From the standpoint of history, this was akin to the D-Day troops announcing they had landed at Normandy ready for the Hundred Years War - right beach, but with a tardiness that amuses. The Court's twenty-first century Internet debut is in contrast to an advanced technology effort within the federal courts that includes electronic filing, a broadband Intranet, and transition of the docket from PACER to the Web.

Arguably, the delay of the Court's Web site was of little substantive consequence. The importance of its publications had since 1994 sparked other parties - universities and commercial publishers - to provide all the opinions, rules and calendar free online. The bulk of the other published material in the Web site's 11 sections and 43 subsections, including the court rules, similarly appears elsewhere. The Court calendar and schedules are helpful to have from the source, but were available in good quality at the Washington Post, Cornell and FindLaw for the past 4 years. Since the Court uses PDF the HTML version of its rulings at Cornell and FindLaw remain easier to for lawyers to cut and paste into briefs, but if one needs to grab them all at once, one long document is convenient. For my taste, the Court goes a bit far in PDF publishing; as the site matures information should migrate to text format to make it more accessible. For example, while it makes sense for Bar admission forms to appear in PDF, there are several short brochures in the section for the public, "About the Supreme Court," that should appear in HTML.

The case handling guides for paid and in forma pauperis cases are among the helpful content I, at least, hadn't seen previously. Docket access is promised for a later date. In the meantime, the Court's BBS offers the docket.

The links section has the same timid quality of most official sites: it links within too tight a circle. C'mon, where's the link to the Supreme Court of Sweden? Even if you're not going to link to the Havana municipal court, at least let me follow a link to the Supreme Courts of our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. At the British Court Services Web site there are links to human rights organizations, but perhaps for fear of controversy those would be anathema on this side of Atlantic. The U.S. Court should at least loosen its tie in cyberspace once in a while, maybe buy some click-through banner advertising on Lycos, or have a digital photo contest of kids' moot court snapshots.

The links page did yield one pleasant surprise in the Web site for the Supreme Court Historical Society, with an online store selling items with the official seal. Two items now on my holiday shopping list are the Under Equal Justice Coffee Mug (Price: $9.50), and Guilty, Not Guilty Tie (price $31.50). Picture silk printed with "crisp gold scales and gavels separated by horizontal bands proclaiming 'Noxius and Insons', (Latin for Guilty and Innocent)." How could any public defender go into court without wearing one?

Comparison to International Courts

The Canadian Supreme Court site demonstrates that there is more than one way to handle online publication of opinions. The court links to the University of Montreal Centre de Recherche en Droit Public. In the U.S., the Supreme Court could have decided not to publish its opinions and instead link to an existing source, such as Cornell or Findlaw. Overall, the Canadian court site is of modest size and scope, helpful since the site text appears in both English and French.

In the United Kingdom, as with other European courts, the publication of case law by the government is more important than in the U.S. because European dot coms have not provided the free access we take for granted here. In the U.K., the Lexicon site from the Court Service publishes opinions but does not provide any historical depth. There are High Court cases, House of Lords judgments since 1996, and case law from Scotland since 1998 and Northern Ireland since 1999.

In Europe and Asia what we refer to as the U.S. as the Supreme Court consists instead of multiple high courts divided into the constitutional court and other tribunals, such those deciding criminal or administrative law cases. In France there is the Droit.org site, run by a group of volunteer lawyers, that links to a wide range of statutes and cases, but does not provide much original case law.

The constitutional courts have the most developed Web presence of the overseas high courts. The constitutional court of Slovenia is one of the earliest courts to go online. The French constitutional court publishes the text of the constitution, a common feature in European court sites. In the Czech Republic, the constitutional court publishes its cases and general information at http://www.concourt.cz/ and in Thailand the court maintains a constitutional law Web discussion forum at http://www.concourt.or.th/. The Austrian court publishes extensive bodies of state and federal statutes, as well as case law databases.

In Europe, commercial legal databases remain the only source for large bodies of law, notably in Holland which has the Kluwer firm publish statutes online on behalf of the government. There are innovative online legal publishers that have used the Internet to catapult into the market, such as Jurisline in Germany and Austria.

Conclusion: Alternative Web Strategies

The U.S. Supreme Court site has provided a helpful official source for documents lawyers turn to regularly, such as rules, recent opinions and calendars, but it does not provide a great deal of new material. Overall, the graphic design is clean and shows attention to detail. On the page describing "Information About Opinions", three photos of law books set the scene, but there isn't a overload of clutter. There is room for improvement, however, in the site's ambitions.

In considering the future strategy of the U.S. Supreme Court site, the key question is whether to mimic the case law databases already provided by other sites. The Court could post all half a million pages of its historic opinions, or partner with Westlaw, Lexus, Cornell, or another publisher. An alternative strategy would be to pursue something offbeat, say multimedia. In this vein, emphasize the streaming audio oral arguments in collaboration with Jerry Goldmans Oyez!, and create new streams of all the Justices/ public speeches. However, video is expensive and the Court seems perennially camera shy. We can assume the Court is not going to suddenly allow submittal of pro se criminal appeals and habeas corpus petitions via a simple online form but they could if they wanted to.

The Court should, at least, improve its ties to the constitutional courts in Europe and Asia. It could help improve the education of Americans in comparative law. Translations of the site text into several common languages, such as the French court does, would give the Court and its rulings an international flair.

An intriguing option for the Court might be to plunge into the field of online legal education. Perhaps create a portal to law articles, law school courses and continuing legal education materials on constitutional law. Or serve the high school students learning about American government with a widely expanded history section, then market it to teachers in the trenches with lesson plans and printed information packets to drive Web visits. If that is better suited to another organization's mission, pick a niche is closer to the Court's core. In other words, stand tall in the saddle again, to borrow from Ronald Reagan, and do at least one element superbly on the Web site. Spend a little money (heck, spend a lot of money!) - and if you think about it for five or six years before putting your toe in the water, show what this Web technology can do!

Bradley J. Hillis, M.A., J.D.
August 29, 2000

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Discussion

JURIST and Bradley Hillis welcome your views and comments on this column. Use this form, or e-mail JURIST@law.pitt.edu.