Document Number

None

Current Version

(http://www.legalxml.org/events/ftf001/organizingcommitteeftf001/minutes0_1.shtml)

Previous Version(s)

None.

Workgroup Information

Workgroup Name: Administration

Workgroup Chair(s): Winchel 'Todd' Vincent, III (winchel@mindspring.com)

Workgroup Mailing List: administration@legalxml.org

Workgroup Mailing List Archive:

Workgroup Website:

Document Author(s)

Eddie O'Brien (eddie@ringtail.com.au)

Document Editor(s)

Winchel 'Todd' Vincent, III (winchel@mindspring.com)

Short Statement of Status

Informational

Abstract

These are the meeting minutes from the first Legal XML Organizing Committee meeting. The meeting was held in Chicago, Illinois at the ABA Techshow on Friday March 31st, 2000. Thirty-five people attended the meeting in-person. Three people attended the meeting remotely.

Status of Document

This document is a draft subject to comment and change.

1. Organizing Committee Attendees
	1.1 In-Person Attendees
	1.2 Remote Attendees
2. Meeting Minutes

1. Organizing Committee Attendees

1.1 In-Person Attendees

The following people attended the Organizing Committee meeting in-person.

Neil Aresty, LextraNet.com

Greg Arnold, Georgia Administrative Office of the Courts

Donald L. Bergeron, Lexis Publishing

Jean Bousquet, Wisconsin Supreme Court

Toby Brown, iLumin and Utah State Bar

Tom Bruce, Cornell Legal Information Institute

Erez Bustan, AmericanLegalNet.com

Tom Collins, Juris.com

Nick Finke, University of Cincinnati

Jim Ford, Clerk of Circuit Court, Cook County

Gerry Goldsholle, FreeAdvice.com

Michael Greenwood, Administrative Office, U.S. Federal Courts

Gerald Hoenig, ABA Tech Committee

Dale Kasparek, National Center for State Courts

Ernest Miller, Information Society Project, Yale University

Denis Moran, Conference of State Court Administrators

Grover Mundell, realLegal.com

Eddie O'Brien, Ringtail

Tom O'Connor, CourtLink

Pat O'Donnell, Bridgeway Software

John Pavlou, Tips Technology Committee

Gary Poindexter

Jim Pritchett, National Center for State Courts

Dave Roberst, SEARCH

John Roberts, LEDES.org and Examen.com

Bob Roper, Colorado Courts

Moira Rowley, SCT Government Systems

Chuck Rowth, Chair, ABA Tech Committee, Section on Internet Law

Scott Schumacher, West Group

Mike Simon, Oliver's Cases

Martin Steinberg, realLegal.com

Michael Stevens, PriceWaterhouse Coopers

Winchel 'Todd' Vincent, Georgia State University

Penny L. Wilson, Arthur Andersen

Phil Ytterberg, Westgroup

1.2 Remote Attendees

The following people attended the meeting remotely:

Dan Greenwood

Brent Isrealset, iLumin

Allison Stanfield, eLaw Australia

2. Meeting Minutes

The first Legal XML Organizing Committee meeting took place Friday 31st March, 2000 in Chicago Illinois at the ABA Techshow. Meeting attendees began gathering around 7:30 a.m. The meeting began shortly after 8:00 a.m. and ended at 10:00 a.m.

The meeting began with a welcome from Todd Vincent. Todd promptly turned the meeting over to Jim Keane who acted as moderator (promising not to speak, but that turned out to be a big lie).

Attendees introduced themselves. See the list of attendees above.

Jim Keane introduced the background to the project and some other XML and legal standard related initiatives.

Jim Keane announced that a Symposium called "E-Lawyering Lawyers Serving Society through Technology" was organized at the request of ABA President Bill Paul and a task force in the ABA Law Practice Management Section, call the Tech2000 Task Force.

The group was organized to make recommendations to facilitate innovative technologies particularly to provide legal services to the poor and middle class. This ABA Symposium passed a resolution to support XML standards and a group to facilitate the creation of standards. The group also recommended to publish future ABA materials in XML.

Jim and Todd presented a general list of issues that the the Organizing Committee needed to discuss and resolve:

What standards?

What technologies?

Developed for what social economic purpose?

Developed for what legal applications?

Developed by whom?

What should the organization look like?

Who governs?

Who funds?

Who owns?

Who administers and manages?

Who owns IP and under what policy?

How do we market the effort?

Slides: (Power Point |  PDF)

An issue paper was published several days prior to the meeting. This is a twelve page paper with a two page executive summary. (Microsoft Word | PDF).

Brent Israelson presented a possible organizational model for allowing Legal XML to proceed. Brent's slides are below in Power Point, HTML, and PDF. (The HTML is probably only viewable in Internet Explorer.)

Slides: (Power Point | PDF)

Jim requested any alternative models from the floor and some discussion took place about the relative merits of filing as 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(6) organization.

There was a motion to create a working group to produce a strawman draft on the best corporate structure for the Legal XML. The volunteer group includes:

Brent Isrealsen

Dave Roberts

Erez Bustan

The group agreed to draft and publish a strawman by May 1st, 2000. This document would be posted to the listserv for comments that would then allow the redrafting of the position by May 20th, 2000. Debate might continue after May 20th. There will be a face-to-face meeting in Los Angeles, on or around June 20th, in conjunction with LegalTech for future face-to-face discussion.

The group then discussed some scoping and intellectual property issues.

Various views were expressed, notably Phil Yetterberg (West Group) Ernie Miller (Yale), Nick Finke (University of Cincinnati), Tom Bruce (Cornell), and Donald Bergeron (Lexis). The discussion led into a somewhat lively debate about "open source code" versus "protocols" versus "data standards."

There seemed a reasonable consensus that the focus of Legal XML is and was to be on "data" standards in XML. However, it was recognized that under the current Operating Rules, licensing regime, and mission statement, "open source" is within the scope of Legal XML. There was a debate about how to categorize "protocols." The question raised, but not decided, is what Legal XML ought to do going forward.

Jim Keane put forward a request for volunteers to form group and write a strawman on these issues. The following people put there names forward:

Don Bergeron

Tom Bruce

Nick Finke

Dan Greenwood

Ernie Miller

Jim Pritchett

Phil Yetterberg

The group agreed to draft and publish a strawman by May 1st, 2000. This document would be posted to the listserv for comments that would then allow the redrafting of the position by May 20th, 2000. Debate might continue after May 20th. There will be a face-to-face meeting in Los Angeles, on or around June 20th, in conjunction with LegalTech for future face-to-face discussion.

The group then turned to issues related to the most appropriate organizational structure.

Brent and Toby Brown defined the model used for Utah Electronic Law and Partnership (UELP) which has a four person Board of Trustees and a Steering Committee.

Eddie O'Brien suggested that all the stakeholders should be represented at the Steering Committee level and then Todd defined a broad outline of who the stakeholders were:

Academic

Government

Non-Profit Organizations

Private Industry

Todd requested volunteers for drafting the organizational structure for LegalXML. The following people put there names forward.

Toby Brown

Rolly Chambers (not present, suggested by Jim Keane)

Jerry Honig

Dennis Moran

Eddie O'Brien

Pat O'Donnell

Moira Rowley

Phil Shuey (not present, suggested by Jim Keane)

Penny Wilson

The group agreed to draft and publish a strawman by May 1st, 2000. This document would be posted to the listserv for comments that would then allow the redrafting of the position by May 20th, 2000. Debate might continue after May 20th. There will be a face-to-face meeting in Los Angeles, on or around June 20th, in conjunction with LegalTech for future face-to-face discussion.

The meeting concluded with a summary and warm thanks.