This article by Jules Winterton, CEO of BAILII, is an expanded version of the presentation he delivered as the Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture 2022. The article briefly recounts the history of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) and its achievements, the features of the service and the challenges of publishing judgments. It sets BAILII in the context of recent government initiatives and outlines plans for the future of BAILII.

During its 70th Anniversary celebrations the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London launched IALS Digital - a new name for established and evolving online services at IALS, bringing together resources, opportunities for new legal information initiatives, research projects and partnerships, and delivering support for digital legal scholarship. This paper written by Steven Whittle, IALS Digitial Manager, developed from presentations at the launch in November 2017, reports on the event and describes what the Institute plans to achieve through IALS Digital, explaining what it is, how it has developed and how it fits well with the IALS national role in the promotion and facilitation of legal research.

Free access to public legal information for the general public and professionals promotes justice and the rule of law. Presenters at the 2015 Law via the Internet conference discussed projects using the power of technology combined with expert human input to make information accessible, and to extract new information from large document collections. Although the scale is different, there are similarities in the ways in which indexers and informaticians explore meaning, develop standards and consider user needs to make information widely accessible. Glenda Browne reports on the conference.*

This paper written by Ginevra Peruginelli is devoted to a discussion of the issues concerning the provision of free access to law in our global society and investigates the effects and benefits of freely available information to the legal profession, citizens and governments. The knowledge of rights, responsibilities and policies allows people and institutions to know what is expected of them and which protections they enjoy. In particular, the paper focuses on the main actors, namely the Legal Information Institutes, involved in the free access to law all around the world. These institutions publish legal information from more than one source for free, and mutually collaborate both politically and technically through membership.

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies holds copies of case papers of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). Steven Whittle describes the recent open access initiative at the IALS, working with BAILII to provide online access to historic case papers of appeals from over 35 countries from the period 1935 to 1985. These are cases of the highest importance in the legal development of each of the countries and to the development of common law shared by many countries worldwide.

The internet and the World Wide Web (www) has allowed the free flow of information across countries. Peter Martin and Tom Bruce from Cornell Law School pioneered the development of the ‘Free Access to Law Movement’ around the world. The Australian Legal Information Institute and various other Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) were established by adopting the Montreal Declaration at the Law via Internet Conference held in 2002. As a member of the United Nations, India adopted the UNESCO policy guidelines for the development and promotion of governmental public domain information. In India, the National Informatics Centre has played a leading role in supporting the maintenance and dissemination of Indian government public information that is useful for legal education, research and practice. This paper by Priya Rai, and Akash, gives a brief informative overview of the ‘free access to law movement’ resources pertaining to India. These resources have been categorised for easier understanding: parliamentary resources, legislative resources, case laws, law reform reports, international treaties and legal scholarship and journals. The article also provides an overview of the Legal Information Institute of India extending its contribution to disseminating Indian legal information.

This paper, written by Sue du Feu and James Lambert, outlines the challenges faced by the Jersey Legal Information Board (JLIB) in providing free access to legal information. The power of modern internet search engines has implications for a small island jurisdiction wishing to make its case law available on-line (see: www.jerseylaw.je). Having established protocols and policies to ensure a balance between open justice and privacy, several years later, JLIB is faced with concerns from individuals who feel that continuing public access to their earlier misdemeanours is an unfair burden. The paper will explain how the JLIB addressed the challenge of publishing court judgments online while safeguarding the interests of the individual.

Since it was established, GlobaLex has become a recognised and heavily accessed worldwide database of international, foreign, and comparative law research articles. As Mirela Roznovschi explains, GlobaLex represents a valuable component of legal research in today's cyberlegal environment. In February 2015 GlobaLex celebrates a 10 year anniversary. This article celebrates the success of the service.

Ruth Ward explains how open access to legislation in Africa is a much more recent development than in the developed world. Several recently launched projects are well underway, and are contributing towards promoting justice and the rule of law in Africa. Access to legislation facilitates great transparency and access to the law for the promotion of trade and investment; and supports the resulting economic development on the continent. Several different approaches to establishing projects which deliver reliable consolidated access to legislation are illustrated, and show that successful projects can be established and maintained on modest budgets by very small teams.

In this paper Carole Hinchcliff, Megan Fitzgibbons and Claudia Davies review free resources that can be used when researching the law in Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Background descriptions of the countries' legal systems are provided, along with brief descriptions of websites which provide access to the legislation and case law of the relevant jurisdictions. The article is based on a presentation developed by Carole, and subsequently delivered by Megan and Claudia, at the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) meeting in August, 2013.

In this article Sarah Glassmeyer and Pete Smith address, and focus on, ‘open law’ and the technical issues that can enable access to primary law, and the secondary materials associated with it.

Is Google a substitute for using known, authoritative websites for cases, legislation and other official information? Ian Hunter writes about the test searches that he carried out on Google and discusses the results he noted. In this exercise, consideration is given to whether the websites retrieved are authoritative and also attention is paid to Google's ranking of results.

In this paper Steven Whittle describes recent work at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to provide open online access to the IALS/SALS official journal Amicus Curiae and selected papers from the Institute's annual W. G. Hart Legal Workshop. It discusses some of the issues involved in a transition from print to web publication and looks at the benefits anticipated from additional web delivery.

In this article Philip Chung, Andrew Mowbray, and Graham Greenleaf, the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed; the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII's open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

Cynthia Fellows, Philip Leith and Joe Ury report on the survey responses to a usage and attitudinal project carried out in early 2012 by the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII). There were 3,274 survey participants and their responses demonstrate substantial support for BAILII as an open access mechanism, a technically competent dissemination tool and a useful resource for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Such positive response, we suggest, indicates that BAILII's resources are now threaded through the fabric of UK digital legal information, strengthening the ability of all citizens to access and become better informed about the laws of the land.

This article by Thomas Shaw discusses the key findings of an MSc dissertation which examined legal information professionals' perceptions of what facilitates, and what impedes, the use of free and paid-for legal information resources. It also compares and contrasts the views of information professionals working in academia with those working in law firms. It is situated in the context of significant criticism of commercial legal publishing and the existence of many resources providing free legal information.

Philip Leith, who is a trustee of BAILII, explains its origins in the Society for Computers and Law's suggestion that the government should build a computerised database of English law, to its role today as a major free resource for legal information. He discusses the Australian model, AustLII; describes the current database and considers the interaction between legal publishers and addedvalue and free legal sources both now and in the future.