<p=1>
Your message if very interesting as to the efficacy of Boolean searching
-- but, the basic point is that it is irrelevant to the question of
whether the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin should adopt a public
domain citation. That was the context of your initial memorandum in
1994. It seemed to me and seems to me today that your memorandum
introduced a blast of irrelevancy in an effort to sink something you did
not agree with for other reasons.
<p=2>
Also, oddly, your latest post referred to a purely private letter
respoding to your private letter to me, a letter which you asked for me
to keep private.
<p=3>
It is a non sequitur to state that there are deficiencies in Boolean
searching, and Q.E.D., the State should not adopt a public domain
citation system -- or maybe you operate under a different system of logic.
<p=4>
To make things worse, it was my view that the "proof" you provided had
itself errors -- including relyng upon a study of a litigation support
database search, rather than a case law database. You did not cite a
study of case law database. If you base a conclusion on inapposite data,
then the fact that the conclusion might be correct does not mean that
your statements justified your conclusion. Again, however, even if your
conclusion were correct, it is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT AND IMMATERIAL to the
issue of whether to have a a public domain citation.
<p=5>
[Digression:
Since the discussion of Boolean searching is irrelevant to the issue, I
will not respond at length to your professorial sounding response, which
is truly interesting. Do you have a citation to a study that concluded
that there is a 20% retrieval rate using Boolean searching in Lexis.
That is what is missing in your analysis. No one disputes that pure
Boolean searching is the best way to go. That is why other tools have
been and are being developed -- such a fuzzy searches, relevancy ranking,
semantic networks -- which you forgot to mention in your initial
memo.]
<p=6>
This happens when one works backward from conclusion to proof. The other
thing is that I suggest that you do not take care on verification of
facts. You could easily have called HyperLaw to check the facts prior to
your initial memorandum, or, perhaps West which seemed to have had your
memorandum very quickly could have pointed out the obvious error.
<p=7>
Similarly, in a recent article in Network-2d, you went through elaborate
contortions to try to suggest that an agreement between West and Lawyers
Cooperative as to the use of page numbers never existed -- but, it is an
exhibit admitted into evidence in the West v. Mead trial, and, I would
suggest that West intentionally misled you. Of course, this is what
happens when those who present themselves as independent and objective
commentators obtain the bulk of their information from one side -- West.
If you want a fax of the agreement, please let me know.
<p=8>
On the point of your memorandum, it is plain silly for you to have
suggested that you could send a memorandum to justices of a state supreme
court, a bar committee, West publishing (which then included your
memorandum in a letter to the court) on a matter of public policy being
considered by the bar committee and the court and even suggest that the
letter is confidential and may not be distributed or responded to be
people like me. [Michael Whetstone of West attached your memorandume in a
letter dated April 28, 1994 to Judge David Anderson and copied to the
Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court].
<p=9>
As to why it was not included in the Wisconsin report, let me just quote
excerpts from letters from Lathrop & Clark, the lawyers you retained to
attempt to quash my letter, to the State Bar.
"... the Bar ... is disseminating defamatory material about the Wrens.'
The defamatory material appears in a response (by Alan Sugarman) to the
Wrens' memo.... I make urgent demand upon you immediately to cease all
further distribution" June 22, 1994.
"Finally, my prior letter expressed my hope the Bar and Board of
Governors would also cooperate in remedying the harm already done to the
Wrens' professional and business repurations." June 23, 1994
"In our conversation this morning, you said the Judicial Council received
a copy of the referenced report before the State Bar's Board of Governors
decided defamatory material about Christopher and Jill Wren should be
removed...You agreed you would personally refrain from further
distribution of for the the Wrens and I express our gratitude" June 28,
1994 to the Judicial Council. [Note, this statement is in and of itself
defamatory since it is a complete falsehood that the Board of Governors
ever even suggested that you were defamed.]
<p=10>
None of these letters were copied to me. When I learned of the
situation, I complained about this sneak attack., I then received a
letter backtacking by. from Lathrop & Clark:
"They [the Wrens] then took immediate steps to prevent further
distribution in an effort to eliminate potential harm to your
[HyperLaw's] business interests and to their own." July 14, 1994.
Sure.
<p=11>
Anyway, the whole matter had been laid to rest, and had died down,
when out of the blue, West included your memorandum of April 11, 1994 at
page 202 of the Appendix of its Brief. Let's see: this was done either:
With the permission of the Wrens?
With the knowledge of the Wrens?
Without objection by the Wrens?
Without knowledge by the Wrens?
Over the objection of the Wrens?
<p=12>
Such was the great concern of your attorneys Lathrop & Clark about the
gratuitous, unverified, and disparaging, as well as completely
irrelevant, statements about HyperLaw. [PS It is odd, it is not, that
the most easily checked incorrect statement in your memorandum: that
there are 15 print volumes of the Federal Reporter per year. This is at
page 205 of the West Appendix. Untrue, West knows it is untrue, they
knew it was untrue when then placed it in the appendix.]
<p=13>
I hope you are not know saying that I could not then send to the
Wisconsin Supreme Court the response to your memorandum which your attorneys
belatedly acknowledged was disparaging to HyperLaw.
Alan D. Sugarman
President
HyperLaw, Inc. ®
Publisher of Federal Appeals on Disc tm CD-ROM
sugarman@hyperlaw.com
212-787-2812
212-496-4138 (fax)
P.S.
Total Time to insert paragraph numbers the hard way by hand on a crummy
Pine editor -- 75 seconds.
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