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All common lawyers will be interested in the following -

- ANNOUNCEMENT -

LAUNCH OF BRITISH AND IRISH LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE (BAILII)

BAILII (http://www.bailii.org), the British and Irish Legal Information Institute Pilot Service, is the first web site to provide free access to case law and legislation from numerous British and Irish courts and legislatures, with a single search engine and uniform data formats. It already includes 14 databases from 5 jurisdictions and over 400 megabytes of legal materials.

BAILII has been developed by the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII - http://www.austlii.edu.au), in cooperation with steering committees in Britain and in Ireland. AustLII is a free access Australasian site which is operated jointly by the Law Faculties of the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW). BAILII demonstrates the use of AustLII's software with British and Irish data and AustLII's commitment to free access to the law.

AustLII Co-Director Associate Professor Andrew Mowbray gave the first public demonstration of BAILII at the Citations Workshop at the University of Edinburgh on Saturday 8 March, and to a meeting of UK government official and invited British and Irish academics in London on 14 March. Professor Mowbray wrote the search engine and mark-up software used by BAILII and built its databases.

Following the interest generated at the 'Free the Law' Meeting in London last November (see http://www.scl.org/free-the-law/), the Society for Computers and Law convened a UK Steering Group. In Ireland John Mee (Dean of Law, University College Cork) co-ordinated an informal committee. The three parties have cooperated in obtaining data so that AustLII could build the Pilot System. The UK Steering Group has obtained commitments of over £100,000 to help fund free access to law. A suitable system operator is being sought in Britain and Ireland.

BAILII already includes 14 databases from 5 jurisdictions, which may be searched singly or jointly:
United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions
United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
United Kingdom Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions
Court of Appeal of England and Wales Decisions
High Court of England and Wales Decisions
Scottish Court of Sessions Decisions
Scottish High Court Decisions
Scottish Sheriff Court Decisions
Northern Ireland Court of Appeal Decisions
Northern Ireland High Court Decisions
Northern Ireland Legislation
Irish Supreme Court Decisions
Irish High Court Decisions
Irish Legislation

Access is free. The system currently contains around 400 megabytes of legal materials comprising over 75,000 searchable documents with about 2 million hypertext links. The content of the BAILII site will be expanded significantly over the coming months.

Courts or Tribunals that would like their decisions included in BAILII should contact one of the sources of further information below. Expressions of interest from potential system operators in British and Irish academic institutions are also welcome.

Comments on BAILII are welcome and should be sent to one of the contacts below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

WEB SITES -
* The 'About BAILII' page at http://www.bailii.org/bailii/ provides details on the development of BAILII and its background.
* The UK Society for Computers & Law 'Free the Law' pages - http://www.scl.org/
* Laurence West-Knight's pages - http://www.lawonline.cc/ukileli.htm
* AustLII - http:www.austlii.edu.au
* BAILII - http://www.bailii.org

CONTACTS -
* Associate Professor Andrew Mowbray , Co-Director, AustLII <andrew@austlii.edu.au> +61 418 635 275
* Professor Graham Greenleaf, Co-Director, AustLII <graham@austlii.edu.au> +61 2 9569 5310
* Philip Chung, Executive Director, AustLII <philip@austlii.edu.au> +61 2 9514 3175
* Laurence West-Knights, Vice-Chairman, UK Society for Computers & Law <ljwk@lix.co.uk> +44 860 315556
* John Mee, Dean of Law, University College Cork; <j.mee@ucc.ie> +353-21-903249
* Ruth Baker, Secretariat, UK Society for Computers & Law <ruth.baker@scl.org> +44 017 923 7393

-----------------------------------

15 March 2000

Please forward this Announcement to any relevant lists that have not yet received it, particularly those in Britain and Ireland. Apologies for any cross-posting that may occur. A copy of this Announcement is at http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/ BAILII/announcement.html