Subject: . . . no subject . . .
   Date: Fri, 14 Mar 97 15:39:57 EST
   From: "Ruth T. Yodaiken" <ryodaiken@slaw.neu.edu>
     To: <citation@teo.uscourts.gov>

To whom it may concern:

     I am writing in reference to Public Domain on Legal Citations, 
in support of the federal government adopting the form of citation 
recommended by the ABA resolution.

     As a first-year law student I at first thought that "West" was a 
legal term rather than a profit-making company because the citation 
system and much of the data available to me comes only from West. I 
don't understand how we as a country can use a system that depends 
upon one company and allows that one company primarily to control the 
information.

     West does not provide the court opinions for free. The 
expensive legal books and Westlaw or Lexis-Nexis access are not 
affordable by the public, and internet access to the decisions West 
records is not allowed to the general public. These are not 
entertainment articles but rather the decisions our courts make about 
our laws and our people.

     These words belong to the people of this county and they are too 
important to be cordoned off by one company. The opinions should be 
in a form accessible to anyone who wants to publish them and they 
should be readily available to the public.

     I think such access aids democracy in its purest form of getting 
information to the public of how our courts function. And that is 
something that can only benefit the courts, the bar and the public. 
On the other hand, limiting access to those who can afford the 
information and leaving control of the information to one for-profit 
company is a threat to democracy. 

Ruth Yodaiken, law student, 
Northeastern University School of Law.