Subject: Citation of Law Reports 
   Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:35:08 +0000 (GMT) 
   From: Roger Horne <roger@number7.demon.co.uk> 
     To: citation@teo.uscourts.gov 
 
Dear Sir 

     I read your request for comments on the ABA's proposed scheme 
for citation of law reports with interest. 

     I am a barrister in practice in London and a member of the Bar 
Council's committee which deals with IT and also of a committee 
consisting of various members of the legal profession (including the 
judiciary) known as ITAC (IT and the Courts). As a result I have 
developed a keen interest in the free dissemination of legal source 
material including statutes and law reports. 

     As I am sure you know, in the past the view was taken that all 
statutes and judgments in the United Kingdom were subject to Crown 
Copyright and the Crown refused to let any one else publish them. 

     As a result of considerable pressure this has now started to 
change and statutes (since the beginning of 1996), statutory 
instruments (since the beginning of 1997) and House of Lords 
judgments (since 15th November 1996) have all been published on the 
internet. There are still contractual reasons why the decisions of 
lower courts are not made available on the internet but I believe 
that will change over the next few years. 

     The House of Lords judgments are put on the internet in HTML 
format and as a result they look very attractive. There is, however, 
nothing in them which would enable an outsider to link to them. By 
that I mean that it is not possible to "jump" to a particular part of 
the report. 

     The ABA report suggests that the paragraphs of all judgments 
should be numbered. I have tried this out with one of the House of 
Lords reports using a method which gives each paragraph number a 
unique hypertext link and was startled to find how useful it was. I 
have used this amended version of the report to illustrate a paper 
which I have called "the Future of Law Reporting". 

     I have (with the permission of HMSO as copyright owner of the 
report) put a first draft of this paper on my Web site at 
http://www.number7.demon.co.uk/ I think that some of the points which 
I make are relevant to your enquiry. 

     I am not qualified to comment on the remainder of the ABA's 
proposals but I would support the recommendation for the numbering of 
paragraphs. 

Roger Horne 

Roger Horne 
11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3QB 
mailto:roger@number7.demon.co.uk 
http://www.number7.demon.co.uk/