The Global Legal Information Network
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
Imagine a tool that allows "everyone to see and understand the diversity of legal systems and laws that exist around the world - and to be able to do so at the click of a mouse."
That is the dream behind the Global Legal Information Network ("GLIN") that the Law Library of the US Library of Congress started in 1993, and which is now well into a major five year upgrade commenced in 2004. Furthermore, the the Library of Congress has awarded just awarded ATS Corporation a $14 Million contract to enhance the Global Legal Information Network yet further. A comment on a posting about GLIN on slaw.ca reports that GLIN has experienced a 70% increase in traffic and anticipates a tenfold increase in storage capacity in the first [ATS] contract year.
The current edition of The Futurist magazine has a six page article on GLIN, titled Toward a Global Rule of Law : A Practical Step Towards World Peace. (If you don't get The Futurist, the you can purchase the article through the hyperlink for $3.00.) The GLIN Foundation is charged with promoting GLIN's growth, development and improvement. The intent that once it is viable, GLIN will move from the control of the Library of Congress, to "an internationally vibrant and independently viable base of operation." This may in fact happen sooner rather than later, if federal funding on which the program currently relies is lost in 2008.
According to The Futurist's article, there are many uses for GLIN:
International business can:
- Support their claims in national courts by presenting comparative legal precedents
- Assess the ease of operations, constraints, and problems when entering new markets
- Streamline and standardize filings in specialized areas, especially where model legislation is originated through the GLIN process
- Support their research for cases and trials involving disputes where national laws run counter to practices in similar or parallel countries
- Provide comparative analysis of laws of particular concern to clients
- Quickly access authenticated laws and regulations for client corporations
- Search through the laws of the world with a standardized thesaurus in 15 languages
It would seem that GLIN is evolving into a tool that may easily become of strategic concern to law firms with international practices, or who have clients that operate internationally. It is also a threat (almost certainly a very serious one) to firms that rely on their knowledge of their local law to serve offshore clients. The list of countries participating in GLIN is by no means comprehensive ... yet. It excludes most of Europe, India, China, Russia and several other important global jurisdictions. This is unlikely to remain the case. Either GLIN will grow to encompass the legislation of those countries too, or a new "GLIN" will arise that does, that may eventually displace GLIN. The point is: this is further evidence of the accelerating commoditization of knowledge in today's global knowledge economy.
Which all does raise the questions: To what extent is your firm's revenues dependent on the fact that it is easier for a global firm to refer work involving your local legislation to you, than do it themselves? What if GLIN or something similar changes that? At the most fundamental level, what will your firm be like in a world where legal information from across the world is almost instantaneously accessible to everyone, almost for free?
ZiefBrief and BarclayBlog have also blogged about GLIN in the past week or two.
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