LegisLink: Simplified Human-Readable URLs for Legislative Citations

LegisLink is a Web service that establishes “human-readable web address[es] that link[] directly to legislation and sublevels within legislation for any jurisdiction.”

“When linkable, LegisLink directly connects to the official website.
When not linkable, LegisLink connects reusing the official document.”

LegisLink is organized by Joe Carmel, former IT manager for the U.S. Congress [the U.S. federal legislature], and a pioneer in the development of XML for legislation.

LegisLink hosts a Wiki, where:

• “Users define LegisLink formats for software developers to create.
• Developers write code to provide the results.
• There’s also some discussion topics, defining of formats, and general idea swapping.”

LegisLink currently has URLs established for legislation from:

• the U.S. Congress;
• New Zealand; and
• the U.S. State of Colorado.

LegisLink is developed by volunteers. LegisLink seeks additional contributors to develop URLs for more jurisdictions, and to create additional services. LegisLink also seeks additional participants to use and test the LegisLink URLs that have already been developed.

LegisLink seems related to a number of recent legal informatics developments, including law-related Linked Data projects, and the URN:LEX URI standard for legal information.

For more information, please see the LegisLink Website.