« Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 2 today (and 5 NFP) | Main | Law - More on "Illinois has issued its first civil union license, launching a historic day for same-sex couples across the state." »

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Courts - Illinois Supreme Court moves to public domain citation system

The Madison Record reports in a long story dated May 31, 2011 that begins:

In another bow to the digital age, those bulky law books containing officially reported Illinois court opinions soon will be going the way of 8-track tapes and boom boxes.

The Illinois Supreme Court announced Tuesday a new way of officially citing its cases and those of the Illinois Appellate Court. This new method will eliminate the need to contractually publish and purchase the official opinions in bound volumes. It will save Illinois taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Illinois will join about a dozen other states that already use the new method of case citation. [ILB: Nearby states, in addition to Illinois, are Wisconsin and Ohio. Wisconsin was the first state to move to "vendor neutral," "medium neutral" citation.] The Supreme Court promulgated the changes in amendments filed Tuesday to Supreme Court Rule 6 and Rule 23.

"The changes are reflective of the way we all live and the way the practice of law is changing," said Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride. "So much legal research is now done online through references and sources available on the Internet and even on smartphones that it makes the publication and purchase of official printed volumes unnecessary and a waste of money and resources.

"The official body of Illinois court opinions will now reside on the website of the Illinois Supreme Court, readily available to lawyers, judges and law clerks for official citation and to any member of the public who wishes to read them."

The ILB has obtained a copy of the new Illinois Supreme Court rule.

Here is a 4-page July 1998 publication of the American Ass'n of Law Libraries discussing "the path to citation reform" -- it includes of 11 states participating as of that date.

These are also called "neutral citations." For more, see this 37-page paper by Peter W. Martin of Cornell Law School, titled "Neutral Citation, Court Web Sites, and Access to Case Law."

[More] The Law Librarian Blog has just posted this entry, headed "Illinois Reports 1831 - 2011 RIP."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 1, 2011 02:10 PM
Posted to Courts in general