2011/6/18 Matt Wardman <[email protected]>: > For information, if anyone can pass the news on to those who may be > interested. > > Bailii - the guys who provide the database of Court Judgements among > other services, has an appeal for funds on after losing a sponsor. > > Details here: > http://www.bailii.org/bailii/appeal.html > > Their annual running costs are £160k and they have only a couple of staff. > > Personally I find that I use them much as MySociety reference sites. >
As a practising lawyer I find them extremely useful as a site, but not nearly as useful as they might be. Sadly, the existence of bailii appears to be used as (one of the many) an excuse by the court service not to make their judgment data properly open. A blog in which I participate was asked to publicise their quest for funding and we did, but with a qualification: http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2011/06/bailii-needs-your-cash-regularly/ The bottom line is, I'd like to think they felt some pressure to be less stupidly precious about their data - eg not allowing a full RSS feed of judgments - in return for more support and funding. It would be a bad thing if they folded, but it would be a much better thing if they felt they needed to behave better. Indirectly I (via several organisations I am a member of) and most lawyers contribute to bailii (and therefore, so do you our clients) so I think it is reasonable to ask that they give back more in terms of opening data up. Not allowing google to spider you is just plain dumb. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
