In the late 1960's, few attorneys would have considered the possibility that their research needs could almost be exclusively met from within the walls of their office. It was during this period that Data Corp., a company who had contracted with the Ohio Bar to input court decisions in a computer database, was being pursued by Mead Paper Co. for its technology in retrieving air reconnaissance photographs and ink jet printing. Mead purchased the company without being particularly aware of the contract with the Ohio Bar. Mead eventually envisioned the potential of this “afterthought” and created the LEXIS online legal research system.1 This development, along with the creation of the Internet, has increased our capacity to receive instant access to legal information at an astounding rate.

In the same era, there were demands by the public for more accountability in government. One of the more concrete results was the Freedom of Information Act. In the original act, Congress effectively mandated that the amount of information available from government be increased exponentially, allowing public access to government records when the requestor stated a research purpose which involved monitoring actions of the government. Even then, however, the law dictated a balancing of the public’s right to access and the individual’s right to privacy.2 In 1996, amendments to this act allowed access to records regardless of purpose, and, as a result, effectively eliminated the previous act’s balancing test in most cases.3

While improvements in technology for distributing information as well as increased availability of government information would seem to be a best case scenario in a democracy, these developments have created a serious dilemma for government, and the court system, in particular; while public records with a great amount of personal information (such as Social Security number, birth date, etc.) have long been accessible to those taking the time to comb through piles of paper court records, do we want the same information available at the click of a mouse?

In 1999, the federal courts (through the Judicial Conference of the United States) began to wrestle with the issue of whether to allow online access to court files. This question immediately became a lightning rod issue for two differing spheres of opinion: those who value individual privacy and those who advocate open, accessible records in government. The Judicial Conference’s Committee on Court Administration and Case Management issued its “Report on Privacy and Public Access to Electronic Case Files” on June 26, 2001 and was approved by the Judicial Conference for utilization in September of that year. The report recommended that civil case files4 “be made available electronically to the same extent that they are available at the courthouse” with the exception that personal data identifiers be modified so as to protect individual privacy. It indicated that information such as Social Security numbers, names of minor children, birth dates and financial account numbers should be modified. Specifically, the report states that when a Social Security number must be given in the document, only the last four digits should appear when filed. The burden of protecting clients’ privacy in court filings is on members of the bar “by carefully examining the documents that they file in federal court for sensitive, private information and by making the appropriate motions to protect documents from electronic access when necessary.”

In bankruptcy cases, the report recommended a similar move, allowing electronic access after privacy and security concerns were addressed. Two-thirds of bankruptcy courts are operational now under this mandate.5 As of December 1, 2003, Bankruptcy Rules 1005, 1007 and 2002 were amended to allow for the courts to keep internal records of full Social Security numbers (for identification information to be passed onto creditors), but mandated that the last four digits only be displayed in documents to be included in the case files.6

The 2001 report recommended that criminal case files should not be available online, fearing that access to preindictment information may compromise law enforcement efforts and endanger the lives of cooperating individuals, such as those in a plea bargain. However, it approved creation of a limited pilot program for 11 courts which allowed limited electronic access to criminal case files. The pilot program guidelines prohibited public access to materials “such as pretrial and presentence investigations, Statements of Reasons, and sealed documents” and required deletion of Social Security numbers, names of minor children and permanent addresses.7 A study of this pilot project by the Federal Judicial Center indicated strong positive opinions among the judges having experience in the pilot program. Judges and staff indicated that time and money savings, ease in case tracking, remote access, less time involvement by the clerk’s office with court documents were all advantages they saw in their experience with electronic access in the pilot program.8 As a result, the Judicial Conference has approved access to criminal case files online to the same extent as access available at the courthouse. At the moment, federal court administrators are working with Judicial Conference committee staff to develop guidance on how to carry out the policy in the criminal courts.9

Access to court records is available through a system called Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or PACER. Personal privacy concerns for court files may be somewhat alleviated by the system’s terms of usage: all users must register (giving name, address and telephone information) and pay usage fees. The homepage of PACER can be found at: http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov.

1 Henry and Elizabeth Urrows, An Inside Look: Money Chasing Innovation, Computerworld ID/1, May 23, 1983, LEXIS, News-All Years Source.

2 Victoria S. Salzmann, Are Public Records Public? The Collision Between the Right to Privacy and the Release of Public Court Records Over the Internet. 52 Baylor L. Rev. 355, 358 (2000).

3 James T. O’Reilly, Expanding the Purpose of Federal Records Access: New Private Entitlement or New Threat to Privacy?, 50 Admin. L. Rev. 371, 372 (1998).

4 “Case file” in the report is defined as “the collection of documents officially filed by the litigants or the court in the context of litigation, the docket entries that catalog such filings, and transcripts of judicial proceedings.” It generally does not include “non-filed discovery material, trial exhibits that have not been admitted into evidence, drafts or notes by judges or court staff, and various documents that are sometimes known as ‘left-side’ file material.”

5 United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 2003 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary (January 1, 2004) at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2003year-endreport.html.

6 Rules Change to Protect Privacy, The Third Branch: Newsletter of the Federal Courts (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Washington, D.C.), Dec. 2003, at 7.

7 Few Negatives Reported on Electronic Access to Criminal Files, The Third Branch: Newsletter of the Federal Courts (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Washington, D.C.), Oct. 2003, at 6.

8 Id.

9 United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 2003 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary (January 1, 2004) at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2003year-endreport.html.

Do not save anything to the Law Library Lab computers. Always save to a floppy disk, CD-ROM or USB Flash Drive. The lab computers will not retain anything saved to the hard drives.

Each student print account has received 500 pages for the Spring semester. If there are any printer/user errors, Moot Court printing, résumés, or Directed Research printing – fill out a print exemption form. These forms are available in the Lower Level Lab and at the Circulation Desk.

Do not send Westlaw or Lexis print jobs to Law Library printers. There are two printers in the Westlaw Lab and in the Lexis Lab dedicated to such print jobs. Printing Westlaw or Lexis to lab printers will count against student print accounts.

Do not leave laptops, cell phones, purses, etc. unattended. Continue to keep virus protection and Windows updated.

If help is needed with any of the above, contact Grace Simms, Computer Services Librarian at 726-2687 or glsimms@samford.edu.

Alabama governmental information on the Internet continues to expand. Particularly useful to legal professionals, the following sites enhance (and sometimes replace) traditional print sources.

Attorney general opinions – formal and informal – from 1979 to date searchable by keyword, phrase, opinion number, date, name, and more.

Banking regulations for the Alabama Consumer Credit Act and the Small Loan Act.

All Commission rules and regulations plus PSC orders from 1993 to date retrievable by keyword, phrase, docket number, or month.

Selected orders and opinions issued by the department’s chief administrative law judge from 1983 to date (print version, Administrative Law Quarterly, ceased publication in 2003).

Full text of formal advisory opinions issued since 1995 (print version, Advisory Opinions, ceased publication in 2003).

Full text, searchable advisory opinions issued since 1976.

Current city codes for Business License, Occupational, Sales, Use, Lease, and Lodgings Tax from Birmingham’s Finance Department (Tax and License Administration Division).

Municipal Code Corporation’s free, though unofficial, codes from cities nationwide including twenty-one cities in Alabama.

[This bibliography was presented by Brenda Jones and Becky Hutto at the fall meeting of the Law Libraries Association of Alabama held at the University of Alabama School of Law, November 14, 2003.]

A graduate of Cumberland from the law school’s early days in Tennessee, Cordell Hull had a long and distinguished career in public service. He served more than twenty years in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Secretary of State in 1933, a position he held until 1944. Known as the father of the United Nations, Hull received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his part in organizing that body. 6 ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA 131-132 (15th ed. 1985) (AE5/.E363/1985/Reference); Harold B. Hinton, CORDELL HULL, A BIOGRAPHY (1942) (E748/.H93/H54/Friendship Room).

In tribute, Cumberland Law Library maintains the Cordell Hull International Law Collection. The Third Floor collection includes international case reporters and digests, U.S. treaties, U.N. treaties, and treaty indexes.

Surprisingly, Cordell Hull completed his legal education at age nineteen in just five months! In his own words, he recalled his days at Cumberland as follows:

“In early January, 1891, I began my formal law education, entering the senior class of the Cumberland Law School at Lebanon, Tennessee. Since the roads were well-nigh impassable through the mountain country in the winter, I took a raft down the Cumberland to Carthage and caught a train to Lebanon.

The law course consisted of ten months, divided into two classes of five months each. One could enter the senior class directly by taking a very stiff entrance examination. This I did, and passed . . . In June I passed the final examination and was graduated. According to custom, we members of the graduating class, the moment we received our diplomas, took them to the courthouse, where a district judge awaited us. He swore us in as members of the bar. I was not twenty years old.” 1 Cordell Hull, THE MEMOIRS OF CORDELL HULL 26-27 (1949) (E748/.H9/A3).

As a service to law school professors, the Law Library furnishes media equipment, as available, for classroom instruction. To request a TV, VCR, overhead projector, opaque projector, or screen, just send an e-mail to
lawmedia@samford.edu, specifying the date, time, location, and equipment. To ensure delivery, please send the e-mail at least twenty-four hours in advance.

State Law Library Hires Company to Tape Moore Trial at http://www.al.com (Nov. 24, 2003).

[The Law Library has a copy of this trial which is made up of 2 videotapes. They are shelved with the multimedia collection in Room 031A. They can be checked out for 24 hours.]

The preservation agency has added a page to its Web site (http://www.state.il.us/HPA) that exposes famous sayings Lincoln never made. Among them:

-“To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”

-“The strength of the nation lies in the homes of its people.”

And then there’s this one: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, hopes the web site, which highlights fake Lincoln documents, will remind people “that there is such a thing as intellectual or scholarly honesty.”

“And these are standards that need to be adhered to,” he said.

Historians Expose Quotes Wrongly Attributed to Lincoln at http://www.cnn.com (Dec. 1, 2003).

The CHECK IT OUT is published three times a semester. Your opinion is important to us! Send your ideas and/or comments to: Becky Hutto at rmhutto@samford.edu.