Jim Warren (jwarren@well.sf.ca.us) and his fax brigade have just about succeeded in getting public electronic access to all proposed California legislation. (The Senate-amended version passed the Assembly 78-0 yesterday.) Warren has encountered committees where technical arguments cannot even be presented. The amendment process is a stochastic convergence, with no guarantee of approaching a global optimum. Bill AB1624 is now on Governor Wilson's desk (916-445-4633 Fax), with 12 days in which he could veto it. Warren says that letters and faxes have more influence than post cards or phone calls. Use business stationery, or at least indicate your work title ("for identification only") or affiliation. Letters from organizations have the most impact. One personalized page is plenty. Phone calls to your own legislator's office have (or had) significant impact; calls to other legislators are only counted. [jwarren@well.sf.ca.us, 8/22/93 and 9/9/93.]

Perhaps prompted by Warren's campaign, the Legi-Tech company has announced free library access to its California legislative tracking service. Callers to the Sacramento Bee's "BeeLine" at (916) 552-5252 #2021 can also get committee calendars and an analysis of bills. The full text of bills can be obtained with a $10 fax call. (916) 447-1886. [Karl.Palachuk@um.cc.umich.edu, 8/18/93. Jim Warren.] (Legi-Tech and State Net purchase the data that AB1624 will now make available for free. They process it and then sell it back to the CA state, counties, cities, and other interested parties. State Net makes over $600K/year from county and city sales, according to Warren.)

The Government Printing Office is offering the General and Permanent Laws of the US, as of 1/2/91, on CD ROM. $30, for DOS or Windows. S/N 052-001-00439-6. [Joel Upchurch (joel@peora.ccur.com), misc.legal. Bill Park, 8/22/93.]

LawDesk is a CD ROM containing 250K pages of case law. $1,995 from Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing (Rochester, NY), plus $795 for annual updates. (800) 828-6373. [Atlanta Constitution, 8/19/93. EDUPAGE.]

The Legal Ease BBS at (509) 326-3238 has a list of law-oriented BBSs and databases. [Jim Carroll (jcarroll@jacc.com), online, 8/12/93.]

Josh Blackman has compiled a directory of legal resources on the net. He also offers training in using the Internet for legal research. Send your snail mail address for a brochure. joshb@panix.com, (718) 399-6136. [Jim Carroll (jcarroll@jacc.com), online, 9/2/93.]

The new law firm of Oppedahl & Larson (Yorktown Heights, NY) specializes in intellectual property law (including software patents). Carl Oppedahl (oppedahl@panix.com) or Marina T. Larson (karelia@panix.com ?), (914) 245-3252, (914) 962-4330 Fax. [comp.newprod, 7/28/93.]

The Centre for Computers and Law (Rotterdam) sells seven programs -- or "electronic theses" -- developed by students. Their most successful has been an expert system for drafting general contract conditions, as it contained knowledge not available in legal handbooks. About 300 copies have been sold at $300. A previous user-level expert system about dismissal law did not sell well because terminated employees do not buy advisory software. [Leo van der Wees (wees@rrj.frg.eur.nl), AIL-L, 7/29/93.]

Edward P. Richards suggests that expert systems have not penetrated the US legal profession because we have ignored the important problems. Europeans accept law as establishing limits and procedures; Americans often seek legal aid to avoid limits and procedures. To be successful, a legal AI system should help lawyers with their real problems: looking for an angle, creating delay, harassing their opponents without getting in trouble themselves, and sending their clients letters that will make them happy to pay outrageous bills: "Dear Client: We have just filed a motion for yet another reconsideration. This will delay the proceeding for at least a month. Our AI system estimates that the plaintiff's life span, adjusted for his injuries, is only 18 more months, and that his case will decline in value by 75% on his death. At a 60% certainity level we can save you $200,000 by this delay, which will only cost you $40,000 (+/- $15,000) in legal fees. -- Catchem & Fleecem, Attorneys at Law." [erichard@medlaw.win.net (with permission), AIL-L, 8/4/93.]

The editor of Phrack magazine is having fun with copyright. It's a hacker/cracker zine, free to individual hackers. Corporate and government users must register and pay, as stated in strong legal language in the newsletter. Only two such registrations have been received, although many law-enforcement officials routinely FTP copies and distribute them. Editor Chris Goggans uses computer logs and other means to identify copyright violators, then notifies them that they are using company/government property to commit crimes. He also names names (and gloats) in the magazine. It's an interesting study in ethics. [Elliott Parker (3zlufur@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu), CARR-L, 8/20/93.] (I'm for-profit, so I stopped reading after the legal notice. If you want a copy, contact phrack@well.sf.ca.us or FTP one from /pub/phrack on ftp.netsys.com.)