Please give generously....
There’s nothing flashy about the British & Irish Legal Information Institute (Bailii) website. There are simple links, an easy-to-use search engine - and literally thousands of judgments of criminal and civil cases from courts across the UK and Europe.
Bailii has been running for over a decade now, providing up-to-date transcripts of judgments online, for free. It is used by 40,000 individuals a week and costs just £160,000 a year to run. That’s about 0.6 per cent of the revenue generated by the City’s largest litigation team, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, in 2009-2010.
For years Bailii has been funded predominantly by donations from four sources: the Bar Council and the Inns of Court, the Law Society Charity, the Society for Computers and Law, and Her Majesty’s Courts Service. Each have given between £20,000 and £35,000 to keep Bailii going.
But the economic climate has taken its toll. The Society for Computers and Law, itself a charity funded solely by members, has had to withdraw its financial support - although, general manager Ruth Baker stresses, not its moral support - for at least the next year, after giving £177,500 since Bailii was launched. The Law Society Charity is also uncertain that it can support Bailii going forwards.
The contract with the Courts Service runs out in March next year and Bailii’s chief executive Joseph Ury must wait to see if it will be renewed.
So Bailii has launched an appeal for funds, which has gone viral among the legal blogging and tweeting circles. Ury says the appeal has helped already, but more is needed.
Ury stresses Bailii is not likely to fold imminently; the question is more one of long-term survival. He says many donations are for a three-year period. “I suspect after 2013 we’ll be doing this again,” Ury adds, although he hastens to add that every small contribution helps in the institute’s long-term financial planning.
And small contributions are what Bailii is mainly getting. The most generous individual set of chambers or solicitors’ firm so far is 2 Garden Court, which has pledged £2,500 a year between 2010 and 2013. Allen & Overy is giving £2,000 a year for four years beginning 2010 and Clifford Chance the same for three years.
Litigation powerhouse Herbert Smith gave £2,000 this year, as did Landmark Chambers and Essex Court Chambers. Bird & Bird, Bristows and Wilmer Hale (a US firm, it ought to be noted) all gave £1,000.
It’s great that these firms are supporting Bailii - but it should also be stressed that for them, £2,000 is a ridiculously small amount of money. It’s the equivalent of a pay rise to four one-year qualified associates at Clifford Chance this year, for instance.
Although the magic circle all give generously to charity it could be argued that giving to Bailii would be just as valuable, as it would maintain access to a tool used by large numbers of lawyers, students - and journalists - something which really does work in the public interest.
If the worst were to happen and, sometime in the next few years, Bailii were to collapse, UK legal research by all types of firms, sets and individuals would be massively and negatively impacted. Let’s hope that the profession collectively dips into its pockets and makes sure that does not happen.
More about Bailii’s appeal, including a list of current and past donors, can be found at http://www.bailii.org/bailii/appealdetails.html.
Readers' comments (5)
Mark | 16-Jun-2011 3:17 pm
While I don't have any argument at all with the sterling work that Balii has done in the past to open up access to judgments online, the real scandal is that we still need it. In these days of open government and open data, all judgments (from at least the senior courts) should be published by the Ministry of Justice itself as a matter of routine, under a standard Open Government licence so that anyone who wants or needs the data has it freely available at no charge.
The truly excellent online statute law resource at legislation.gov.uk shows how it can be done; there is no reason why the distribution of case law should be left to what is effectively a gentlemen's agreement between the courts and a small charity. And, although Baili's role in pioneering access to judgments is indisputable, it has to be said that the Bailii website (and Bailii's redistribution policy) is looking increasingly out of date when compared to more recent efforts from the online voluntary sector. Maybe the way forward for Bailii is a link up with a an organisation such as MySociety, currently the pace-setters in this field. There's a lot of scope there to not only reduce costs but also to significantly improve the quality and usability of Bailii's output.
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Advertisers? | 16-Jun-2011 4:19 pm
I'm guessing that there is not much hope of generating significant revenue from advertisers on a website with weekly traffic of only 40,000 visitors?
Re the comment above on the site looking outdated, yes it does, but who cares? The case reports are great - that's all that counts.
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Mark | 16-Jun-2011 4:43 pm
The problem with the Bailii's website is that it's not at all user-friendly for the casual or non-professional user. That may not be a problem if you are a law professional and are familiar with its quirks and limitations, but there is a potential audience for that material which goes a long way beyond that. It wouldn't be so bad if Bailii was prepared to let other websites re-use their published judgments, so that they could focus on the professional users while allowing other sites to repackage it in a more attractive way for the casual user. But Bailii explicitly prohibit such use,and even go out of their way to make it hard for the casual user to encounter their own website (eg, by refusing to allow Google, Bing, etc to index them). It's a rather dog in the manger attitude, which I find rather frustrating. As a web professional, rather than a legal professional, I look at Bailli's website and shudder - it could all be done so much better. That's why I suggest a partnership with MySociety, who have the skills (and manpower) necessary to bring Bailii into the 21st century. Doing so would also probably reduce Bailii's costs, which seems a sensible avenue to explore given the reason for this debate in the first place.
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lawlibrarian | 17-Jun-2011 9:49 am
Mark, I wouldn't describe Legislation.gov.uk as 'truly excellent' given that secondary legislation is not available in revised form.
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Mark S | 22-Jun-2011 10:57 am
Mark completely agree decisions should be made freely available but constitutional separation would dictate judgements could not go on justice.gov but rather judiciary.gov. Same as practice notes which are judge made not government made.
BAILLI is great is great for practitioners without subscriptions to the LexisNexis and Westlaws of this world, but like you say not the most user friendly. Issue is how many 'lay' customers would want to access case law as opposed to 'professional' users (I would hazard this would include law students.
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