Juricaf Wins Open Data Award

Juricaf, the free database of francophone supreme court decisions, has been awarded the i-expo 2012 Trophée Open data, according to a post by Jean Gasnault entitled Juricaf – trophée I-Expo 2012 catégorie Open Data, at Juriconnexion.

According to the conference Website:

Ce trophée récompense une initiative innovante de réutilisation de données publiques, innovante, provenant du secteur public, privé ou associatif.

For more information on Juricaf, please see the post, Relaunch of Juricaf: Database of Francophone Supreme Court Decisions.

Congratulations to Guillaume Adreani of AHJUCAF, developer of Juricaf.

HT @juriconnexion.

Justia Wins ABA Silver Gavel Award for Fostering Public Understanding of Law

Justia, the free access to law and legal directory service, has been awarded a 2012 American Bar Association (ABA) Silver Gavel Award for fostering public understanding of the law, according to a 15 May 2012 announcement on the ABA Website.

The announcement recognized the following Justia personnel:

Timothy Stanley, Chief Executive Officer
Stacy Stern, President
Guillermo Balboa and Berenice Beltran, Engineering Staff
Elizabeth Roig and Ken Chan, Attorneys

According to the announcement, the Silver Gavel Award:

recognize[s] outstanding work that fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system. This is the ABA’s highest honor in recognition of this purpose, and no more than one Silver Gavel is presented in each category. [...]

Selection criteria include: how the entry addresses the Gavel Awards’ purpose and objectives; educational value of legal information; impact on, or outreach to, the public; thoroughness and accuracy in presentation of issues; creativity and originality in approach to subject matter and effectiveness of presentation; and demonstrated technical skill in the entry’s production. [...]

For more information, please see the announcement.

Harris Named One of The 100 Most Creative People in Business, by Fast Company

Marci Harris of POPVOX has been named one of The 100 Most Creative People in Business, by Fast Company, the entrepreneurship magazine.

The article notes that within 1 year of its founding, “Popvox reache[d] 100,000 users across every Congressional district” and won the “SXSW Microsoft Bizspark Accelerator Competition.”

Please join me in congratulating Marci!

Harris Wins 2012 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award

Marci Harris of POPVOX has won a 2012 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award.

The award citation reads:

Harris introduced an innovative, distributed solution for online, grassroots advocacy. The platform[, POPVOX,] organizes citizens around important issue, disrupting the traditional lobbying industry.

The award is granted by the Tribeca Film Festival, Professor Clay Christensen of Harvard Business School, and the Disruptor Foundation.

The awards will be formally given on 27 April 2012 at NYU Stern School of Business in New York, New York, USA.

Please join me in congratulating Marci!

Joergensen Profiled as Web Pioneer

Digital law library developer John Joergensen of the Rutgers Camden Law Library was profiled last week as a “Web pioneer” by Kevin Riordan in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Rutgers law librarian a Web pioneer,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1, 2011.

The article describes John’s innovative work developing the Rutgers Camden Law Digital Collections, which provide free Web access to the full text of U.S. federal and New Jersey court decisions, statutes, ethics decisions, and legislative history materials.

Congratulations to John!

IndianKanoon Founder Honored as a Top Innovator by MIT Technology Review

Dr. Sushant Sinha, creator of the free access to law service IndianKanoon, has been honored as one of India’s 18 top innovators, by MIT’s Technology Review, according to a post at rediff.com.

Click here, then click to slide number 18, to see the article.

The article states:

[Indian Kanoon] has been designed to provide the most relevant Indian laws and court judgments in response to a query. It enables people to quickly determine the standing law of the land on any issue and empowers them to seek justice.

The website has gained quick attention and is used by roughly half a million unique visitors and has more than two million page views every month.

With dual degree in computer science and engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and PhD in the same discipline from University of Michigan, Sinha felt the need to generate awareness of laws among the citizens of India. In May 2007, he started developing the portal and finally launched it on 4 January 2008.

“Even when laws empower citizens in a large number of ways, a significant fraction of the population is completely ignorant of their rights and privileges. As a result, common people are afraid of going to the police and rarely go to court to seek justice. People continue to live under the fear of unknown laws and a corrupt police. I started the project as a way to enrich court judgments by linking them with laws and other references. The linking turned out to be so useful that I started building a search engine for Indian law. Indian Kanoon makes it simpler for people to access information on any law or judgment,” explains Sinha. [...]

Presently the Indian Kanoon hosts over 1.2 million documents. It is integrated with the Supreme Court of India, 22 High Courts, and 17 Tribunals to provide a real-time fresh judgments to the users. Sinha is now working on integrating the online channel further with all state laws and with different rules formed by government agencies. [...]

For more information, please see the article.

Wash Honored by Washington Post & Partnership for Public Service

Mike Wash, CIO of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), has been honored as “Federal Player of the Week” by The Washington Post and The Partnership for Public Service, with a profile story in The Washington Post.

The article focuses on Mr. Wash’s innovative development of GPO’s FDsys content management system, and his commitment to open government data, including:

• Partnering with Tom Bruce and his team at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University, and with the Cornell University Law Library, to develop an enhanced, XML-based version of the Code of Federal Regulations;
• Providing free public access to the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations in bulk XML; and
• Partnering with the Office of the Federal Register to launch the innovative Federal Register 2.0.

In the article, George Beckerman of Marlin & Associates praises Mr. Wash for “providing an ‘absolutely essential and an extremely valuable’ service for Americans. ‘Mike’s work protects these assets, keeps then fresh, and ensures their continued value,’ Beckerman said.”

Congratulations to Mr. Wash on this well-deserved honor!

HT @carlmalamud and @harlanyu.