The following letter is today being sent to Donna Tuke, the Editor/Publisher
of Legal Information
Alert. If it is selected for publication, it will not appear for a long
time. I am posting it on Law-Lib
now to correct factual errors in the Leiter article that may have misled
readers. Carol Billings
February 7, 1995
To the Editor
Legal Information ALERT
401 W. Fullerton Parkway
Suite 1403E
Chicago, IL 60614-2805
In his opinion piece in your January issue, "Assault on the Citadel:
Romancing the Crown
Jewels of West Publishing," Richard Leiter contends that the Taxpayer Assets
Project "seemed
to have managed not only to manipulate Department of Justice policy with
respect to caselaw
databases, but to bring AALL leadership along in an effort to undermine
West's case publishing
business." Further, says Leiter, "TAP had managed in only one year to
rouse AALL leadership
and other West detractors to a pitch and a unity of purpose never before seen."
Since I assume that in referring to AALL leadership, Mr. Leiter includes
the Executive
Board and the President, I must correct his erroneous assumptions. I became
particularly
interested in the issue of citation reform about two years ago when the
Louisiana Judicial Branch
began considering the development of an electronic bulletin board for
disseminating opinions
and when multiple publishers expressed interest in marketing Louisiana
primary sources in CD-
ROM format. AALL's interest in citation reform dates back much farther. A
special committee
headed by Robert Nissenbaum studied the issues in the late 1980's, and a
number of excellent
articles on the subject have appeared in legal periodicals during the past
decade.
While the opinions expressed by the Taxpayer Assets Project and a number of
us who
hold elective or appointed positions within AALL do in fact dovetail in many
instances, this is not
the result of a concerted effort or of any undue influence exerted by TAP.
I have had no
correspondence and exactly one telephone conversation with James Love.
During that
conversation, which occurred only a few months ago--long after AALL and its
Task Force had
become involved in the citation controversy, Mr. Love and I laughed about
how funny is was that
we had been accused of so many things without ever having talked or met.
Perhaps inventing a
conspiracy theory is much more interesting than accepting the fact that
serious people who have
studied a controversial subject may reach the same conclusions because good
sense and the
desire to attain common goals lead naturally to that outcome.
Mr. Leiter's contention that some within the leadership of AALL would have
a desire to
"get West" is truly bizarre. West has been a good friend of AALL throughout
its existence, and
being in any sort of adversarial situation with the company is uncomfortable
and unnatural.
Nevertheless, what motivates those of us who advocate citation reform is
such a deeply-held
belief in the people's right of access to the law that we are determined to
continue working to
achieve that goal.
Carol Billings
President, AALL
Law Library of Louisiana
301 Loyola Ave., Room 100
New Orleans, LA 70112
phone: 504-568-5705
fax: 504-568-5069
email: nolawlib@new-orleans.neosoft.com
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