In 1886, the Supreme Judicial of Massachusetts ruled that, because every citizen is presumed to know the law, then every citizen should have free access to court opinions. See Massachusetts Law Updates for more.…

When I traveled to Russia in 2007 and met with court officials there, some courts were experimenting with posting their decisions on the Web. Beginning this week, what was formerly the exception will become the rule, as most Russian court rulings will be published online in their entirety, The Moscow Times reports.

The change is…

Bloggers rely heavily on maintstream news sources for topics. What obligation does a blogger have to give attribution to an original source? To what extent can a blogger use the content of a news story?

We explore these and related issues with New York Times sports reporter Alan Schwarz this week on the…

At least I can claim you read about it here first. The Fastcase iPhone app has been selected by the American Association of Law Libraries as 2010 New Product of the Year.  This is the app that lets you do full case law and statute research for free on your phone.

The…

The Phoenix is out today with media critic Dan Kennedy’s 13th Annual Muzzle Awards, honoring New England’s enemies of free speech and personal liberty. I’m honored that Dan credited me as a source. I want to point out, however, that he mistakenly says that my Media Law blog merged into this LawSites blog. My…

Here is a presentation I gave in April to the Law Librarians of New England, How Social Media Powers Legal Research. Clicking on the link will open an SWF file in a new window. Click the arrows or your mouse to move through the slides.…

Following on the heels of Morrison & Foerster and its launch of an iPhone app in March, the Boston-based AmLaw 200 firm Goulston & Storrs this week came out with an iPhone app of its own. While the MoFo app had the clever name, MoFo2Go, the G&S app is rather…

Follow-ups on a couple of items I previously blogged about:

MoFo2Go. In March, I wrote about law firm Morrison & Foerster’s launch of its own iPhone app, called MoFo2Go. “This app will be most useful to lawyers, clients and others who regularly do business with MoFo,” I wrote at the time. Now, the…

A courtroom in Quincy, Mass., will become a test kitchen for using new media to cover legal proceedings, thanks to a $250,000 Knight News Challenge grant announced today. The grant will go to Order in the Court 2.0, a project spearheaded by John Davidow, executive editor of new media at WBUR in Boston.…

The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization has launched a website designed to provide quick and easy access to international IP resources. Called WIPO Gold, the free resource provides a gateway to WIPO’s broad collection of searchable IP data and tools. Topics covered here include technology, brands, designs, statistics, WIPO standards, IP classification systems and…

If you’re married to your iPhone but not so sure about your spouse, then DivorceApps.com may have just what you need. It is developing a series of iPhone apps designed for people who are considering or in the process of divorce.

Two apps have been released so far. The first, Cost & Prep,…

Over the past six months, a series of workshops and symposia have explored the so-called Law.gov campaign, an effort to put all U.S. primary legal materials in the public domain. Next week, the series wraps up with a June 15 workshop sponsored by the Center for American Progress (which will be streamed live…