Subject: Comment on ABA Resolution for Uniform Citation Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 23:45:25 -0500 From: ccosta@nmaa.org (Christopher Costa) To: citation@teo.uscourts.gov March 14, 1997 To The Judicial conference of the United States Committee on Automation and Technology Re: Response to Notice of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 62 Fed. Reg. 8037 (Feb. 21, 1997) Request to be Heard At Public Hearing on April 3, 1997 This responds to the request for comments on the ABA uniform citation proposal published by the Judicial Conference of the United States at 62 Fed. Reg. 8037 (Feb. 21, 1997). For the reasons below, I respectfully urge the Judicial Conference of the United States to adopt and implement the ABA proposal for a uniform citation system for all federal courts. I am an attorney practicing in Silver Spring, Maryland. For the past eleven years, my practice has included computer, software and high technology law and litigation in federal and state courts. I have considerable experience in drafting pleadings, briefs and memoranda to federal and state court judges. I am currently active in a computer and telecommunications law section of a state bar and two voluntary computer law bar organizations. This comment is made on my own behalf and not as a public comment of any organization of which I am a member or co-chair. I am not a member of the ABA. For the following reasons, the federal courts should adopt the form of official citation for court decisions recommended by the ABA resolution and attain the valuable benefits of such a decision for the courts, the bar and the public: (1) Official citation pursuant to the ABA resolution will permit federal court decisions to be cited as precedent from the federal court judge's opinion or memorandum opinion immediately. The citation requirements of The Bluebook, A Uniform System of Citation, 15th Ed. 1991, are antiquated and costly to attorneys and their clients, as The Bluebook requires citation to the form of the opinion contained in reporters published by the West Publishing Company, a non-public source of opinions of federal courts (except, of course, for citations to the United States reporter for opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States). Even if a counsel has the federal court judge's opinion in hand, either in paper or electronic form from the federal court's web site or Versuslaw, this requirement only imposes the additional burden on counsel to obtain additional and costly research into West reporters online or from CD-ROMs or from hard bound books, which few firms can afford to maintain due to the expense or library space requirements. Either the client or counsel bears this cost. (2) Official citation pursuant to the ABA resolution will permit easier access to federal court precedent by the public, including Americans with disabilities. As an abled-bodied attorney, I have the ability to access older versions of West's federal court reporters at law libraries and courts, if I have time to do so or the money to spend to access it. I am very fortunate. Before I wrote an article on cyberspace and the American With Disabilities Act of 1992 (ADA), [Is Cyberspace Public Property? If So, It Should Accommodate the Disabled], I rarely thought of the needs and concerns of disabled Americans. Many disabled persons, including disabled counsels and their clients, cannot travel or move out of their homes or offices without significant expenditures of time, effort or money. The obstacles they encounter many times force them to give in and accept limitations on their rights of access that we would not even think of. Utilizing the uniform citation system proposed by the ABA resolution would assist in providing disabled persons and the public with greater, easier and less costly access to federal court opinions in a form of valid precedent. Many disabled persons cannot travel, move out of wheelchairs or see. The physically impaired can access federal court opinions from private or court-sanctioned web sites via the internet. The visually impaired can attach screen reader software to their computers and listen to the opinion as it is electronically received. The ABA resolution furthers the mandates of the ADA by providing alternative means of access to information of the highest value -- the laws and precedent of our country -- to the public, including disabled Americans. (3) Uniform citation pursuant to the ABA resolution would free federal court precedent from a proprietary reporting system, offer greater access to opinions of precedential value authored by federal court judges and would not be costly. Continuing the requirement that federal court precedent may only be cited to a proprietary reporting system does not appear equitable or in the interests of the public. While the West key number system, annotations and digests are, and will probably remain, of significant value, requiring federal court precedent to be cited only to the volume and page numbers of West's reporters hampers the free flow of public information. The ABA resolution has a simple and cost- effective means of widely disseminating public documents. Word processing software can easily provide paragraph numbers to paragraphs in judicial opinions and the clerk of the court can give the opinion a unique number when entering the opinion. Simple, inexpensive and all reporting services can use the same numbering system. I respectfully request the right to be heard at the public hearing on April 3, 1997, if my trial schedule permits. Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments to the Judicial Conference of the United States. Sincerely, Christopher R. Costa Attorney at Law 720 Thayer Avenue Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 Phone: (301) 587-0178 Fax: (301) 588-0561 Email: ccosta@nmaa.org