A small, but positive change.
"Publishing legal codes on GitHub is a real government innovation. It isn’t like the techno-solutionist blockchain nonsense that is in vogue lately. It’s the cherry on top of real work happening inside the DC government improving a process hundreds of years old:
The Council is able to publish the law better and faster than ever before. With the District’s previous codification contractor, updates to the DC Code were published three times a year, and there could be a five-to-seven month delay in seeing the latest laws. But the Open Law Library has shortened the publication process to about a week after a law is enacted.
It also means we’re all getting to see more of the actual law that governs us—not the law as it was months ago.
The laws are now published on an easy-to-use, modern, searchable, mobile-friendly, and free website: https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/.
This increases access to justice for District residents and lawyers at legal aid organizations who don’t have access to high-priced legal research tools.
I hope other jurisdictions learn from the District and move the law forward with the Open Law Library, and I especially hope that the District expands its use of Open Law Library tools to other aspects of DC law starting with the DC Municipal Regulations (DCMR)."
"Publishing legal codes on GitHub is a real government innovation. It isn’t like the techno-solutionist blockchain nonsense that is in vogue lately. It’s the cherry on top of real work happening inside the DC government improving a process hundreds of years old:
The Council is able to publish the law better and faster than ever before. With the District’s previous codification contractor, updates to the DC Code were published three times a year, and there could be a five-to-seven month delay in seeing the latest laws. But the Open Law Library has shortened the publication process to about a week after a law is enacted.
It also means we’re all getting to see more of the actual law that governs us—not the law as it was months ago.
The laws are now published on an easy-to-use, modern, searchable, mobile-friendly, and free website: https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/.
This increases access to justice for District residents and lawyers at legal aid organizations who don’t have access to high-priced legal research tools.
I hope other jurisdictions learn from the District and move the law forward with the Open Law Library, and I especially hope that the District expands its use of Open Law Library tools to other aspects of DC law starting with the DC Municipal Regulations (DCMR)."