Bintliff on the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act

[Rob Richards]

Professor Barbara A. Bintliff of the University of Texas School of Law has posted The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act Is Ready for Legislative Action, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, Professor Bintliff -- who is the Reporter for the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) -- explains the provisions of UELMA -- a new, proposed, uniform, U.S. state statute requiring states that enact it to authenticate, preserve, and provide permanent public access to legal information that those states publish in electronic formats. The statute is intended to "ensur[e] the trustworthiness of online legal resources and preserv[e] ... electronic [legal] publications to provide for continuing accessibility."

The post also examines the policy principles that inform the Act -- especially the Act's "outcomes-based" approach, intended to accommodate technological change and to afford states substantial flexibility in complying with the Act -- as well as the origins of the Act in the American Association of Law Libraries' 2007 National Summit on Authentication of Digital Legal Information.

Professor Bintliff explains that UELMA is scheduled to be introduced into a number of U.S. state legislatures in January 2012.

This post will be of interest to policy makers responsible for digital legal information resources, the government and legal technology communities, the legal community, legal information professionals, and advocates of improved public access to legal information.