Judges Gazing at a Wikipedia screen

Josie Dough
3 min readMar 1, 2021

The front cover of this issue draws on a few articles in this edition, at least a cou­ple of which reflect the way we litigate now. There’s a judge gazing at a Wikipedia screen. Lawyers and judges can and do cite Wikipedia, but the trick is to know (a) when it’s a good idea to do so and when it isn’t, and (b) how to do it, if that’s what you want to do. Paul Killian’s article discusses that, and also delves into wider questions about when it is appropriate to cite Internet sources for authority, in general, and the logistics of doing so.

Another detail in Peter Siu’s cover illustration is the advertisement on the courtroom wall offering commercial court reporter services and the Unruh act for lawyers needing to make a record. Not long ago, that would have been utterly fanciful. Today, that is less so Los Angeles, the largest county in the state, has discontinued court-provided reporter services for most civil proceedings, so the age of BYOR (“bring your own reporter”) is upon us. And maybe, indeed, advertise

ments in courthouses could help bridge budget gaps. I’d need to think about that one. Anyway, this change in the logistics of the way we litigate raises a bunch of issues. Robert Cooper’s article examines them.

Then, on the floor, is a wastepaper basket for unpublished opinions. But don’t be in too much of a hurry to consign those to the trash. Aside from their intrinsic use as research tools, the rules about citing them are a little more tricky than you might imagine, as Benjamin Shatz and Emil Petrossian explain.

As the table of contents shows, by no means everything in this issue is hinted at in the front cover illustration. For example, following on from some articles in the last issue, and, in particular, one that was very critical of the Administrative Office of the Courts, that entity’s Director, Judge Steven Jahr, gives his perspective on the state of the judicial branch. All that plus more — including the latest in our “I Learned About Litigating From That” and “New Lawyer’’ columns, as well as the first in a regular ADR Update column.

The Internet is so prevalent it is easy to forget that it only became accessible to the general public in 1995.

Based on a Westlaw search for “http,” the first citation to the Internet found in any published appellate decision in the United States appeared the next year, in a dissenting decision by Justice Sandstrom of the North Dakota Supreme Court.

A month later, the first Internet citation used in any federal appellate case appeared in a concurring opinion by United States Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

The first California decision to cite to the Internet was a 1998 decision authored by Justice Haller of the Fourth District, Division One. Of the Internet citations in those early decisions, only two of the sources remain available. Justice Sandstrom’s citation is still available, though it takes several steps in navigating the site to find the information (it was a citation to the North Dakota State University bookstore to show that its hours were publicly available).

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Josie Dough
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Internet Enthusiast | traveler | Thinker | Writer