L.A.W. BBS (Legal Access in Washington Bulletin Board System) is staffed by a
group of enthusiastic volunteers and subsidized by the Washington State
Bar Association. It provides teleconferencing capabilities, file transfer
utilities, e-mail. A "Door" provides access to full-text legal databases.
Databases include:
Revised Code of Washington
Washington Administrative Code (more current than the paper copy)
(not available on Lexis or Westlaw)
Washington Reports, 2d (1977-1991)
Washington Appellate Reports (1977-1991)
Washington Court Rules (various)
Washington Attorney General Opinions (1949-1993) (a longer run
than on Lexis or Westlaw)
Washington Administrative Decisions (various)
Dept of Revenue Tax Decisions
Excise Tax Bulletins
Revenue Policy Memoranda
City and County Codes (currently 6)
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (12/1991; in test)
Washington State Bar Association Ethics Opinions
Washington Corporations (Secretary of State filings)
Washington Lawyers (directory)
Washington Contractors' License Database
The developers are committed to low-cost access to legal information.
Basic public access is FREE, although limited in time (about half an hour
a day). Professionals may subscribe for $10 per month or $100 per year
for up to 3 hours of searching a day. (An on-line bargain!)
Boolean connectors are available: AND, OR, NOT, PRE/n, and truncation.
The system is not as slick as L&W, but it works well, it covers many
things that just aren't of interest to a national audience, and it's free
(or very cheap).
The BBS has 6 phone lines -- 5 in Seattle, 1 in Tacoma. The developers
hope to set up a node in Eastern Washington to reduce long distance
charges for users outside of the Seattle area.
If you want to give it a try (albeit with long distance charges), the
numbers (with maximum baud rates) are:
(206) 727-8312 -- 14400
(206) 728-2884 -- 14400
(206) 728-2885 -- 9600
(206) 728-2886 -- 9600
(206) 728-2887 -- 14400
(206) 927-1030 (Tacoma) -- 9600
Set up your communication software for 8 bit, no parity, 1 stop bit, [full
duplex].
This year, we had one of the developers of L.A.W. BBS give a demo to the
first year students (the developer of a Washington State CD product shared
the hour). Students can access L.A.W. BBS from our computer lab. We have
one workstation with the state CD and Martindale-Hubbell.
Do other states have similar projects? Are they catching on with
practitioners and the public? Do you include them in your teaching?
Mary Whisner, Head of Reference Telephone: (206) 543-6794
Gallagher Law Library FAX: (206) 685-2165
University of Washington Internet: whisner@u.washington.edu
1100 NE Campus Pkwy, JB-20
Seattle, WA 98105
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/07/00 PST