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          1            VANCE OPPERMAN:  I think I might stand over

          2  there.  I just am very uncomfortable sitting down and

          3  speaking.  I think it comes from the fact when I first

          4  started trying lawsuits, one of the very first judges I

          5  was in front of was Judge Devitt, and Judge Devitt told

          6  me:  Sit down.  That's kind of reverberated in my memory

          7  ever since.

          8            Let me start out by telling you what I would

          9  like to accomplish.  You're going to see an awful lot of

         10  hands-on demonstration, and you're going to see a lot of

         11  technology.  I want to talk, give kind of a framework of

         12  discussion.  I want to talk about kind of where we are

         13  today, how we're going to get to the future, and what I

         14  think the future might look like.

         15            When I was flying here last night and I was

         16  thinking about this conference, and if you'll indulge

         17  me, I'm going to ask you give me two indulgences, it's

         18  Friday.

         19            The first indulgence is I'm a mature father,

         20  so I'm going to bore you with a three year old story.

         21  As you know, those of us who are mature fathers get

         22  together in secret and trade stories about three year

         23  old daughters, and I'm going to do that to you.

         24            At the very end, I do want to address, I speak

         25  about twice a week and I always conclude my remarks




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          1  about one of the severe threats facing the judicial

          2  system in this country.  I will ask your indulgence to

          3  talk about that issue for a couple minutes.

          4            My wife and I were married in Hawaii, we

          5  decided to go back with our three year old daughter in

          6  February.  In particular because that's the whale

          7  watching season.  If any of you have gone to Hawaii, you

          8  know that between Maui and Molokai a huge number of

          9  whales go by.

         10            We had excited our daughter about that, the

         11  first day we got up, she jumped up, looked at the

         12  whales; second day, the same thing, third day the same

         13  thing.  The fourth day we go to do it and my daughter

         14  looks at my wife, Mommy, do you really see the whales?

         15            You know, the thing about little kids is they

         16  have no context, they have no experience in which to put

         17  things.  So I'm going to try to talk about some of the

         18  whales that we see, try to give some perspective.

         19            Let me talk first about in terms of

         20  introductory remarks why we think this conference is

         21  important.  This is the proper place, I think, for us to

         22  discuss the future of the law and the future of law as

         23  it's impacted by technology.  All of us who tried cases,

         24  I did that for almost 25 years, I went to West in August

         25  of '93.  Proud to be a trial lawyer, proudest moments in

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          1  my entire career, my daughter is a lawyer, my dad is a

          2  lawyer.  I remember one of the very first trials we ever

          3  started we had something new called video tape

          4  depositions.  In fact, we had to get a local rule pasted

          5  in Hennepin County, to allow the use of video tape

          6  depositions.  We thought, Boy, this is really high tech,

          7  we're going to show a video tape to the jury.  Of course

          8  the judge wasn't particularly enamored with this, you

          9  know to qualify, if there are video tape depositions

         10  it's kind of a pain.

         11            We tried the case -- I wanted to talk to

         12  jurors and I did, there was a dispute, one of the issues

         13  happened to an underground petroleum tank that leaked.

         14  Our tape that we used part of the deposition and part of

         15  the qualified was a Channel 5 interview with the

         16  defendant, the CEO of the defendant.  We were allowed to

         17  play that.  And there was a dispute about whether or not

         18  some of those facts were really true or not.  That

         19  became an issue.  We won that part of the case.

         20            I asked one of the jurors afterwards what they

         21  liked about the case, why they gave me a little more

         22  money.  One of the jurors had a series of things they

         23  didn't like about our presentation, knocked us down a

         24  little bit in money award.  I said, what about that

         25  other disputed issue?  Oh, no, we saw that on

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          1  television.

          2            That was my first inkling that there is a real

          3  impact of technology on the fact finding process.  This

          4  is the proper kind of conference to discuss those kinds

          5  of issues.

          6            Before we look too much at how to get to the

          7  future, let's talk a little bit about where we are.

          8  First of all in terms of access to the law, there's no

          9  question that in American society we have the best

         10  access to law of any society on the face of the planet.

         11  One seriously objects to that, seriously says that's

         12  untrue, I think there are those who want to close off

         13  access to law and I think that's unwise.  But in terms

         14  of where we are today, there's no society where people

         15  have more access to law.

         16            Obviously, we should not allow technology to

         17  create a barrier.  We have a trifurcated economy, we

         18  have a health care system that is often exclusionary, we

         19  have an educational system that frankly walls people

         20  off, we can talk about that in some other forum about

         21  what that means, but at least the judicial system has

         22  fought hard to stay open and have access.

         23            We have to be careful that technology is not a

         24  way in which we effectively divide technology barriers

         25  and price barriers, we close people off with access to.

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          1            I think that obviously today we have a rich

          2  diversity of print, a rich diversity of fixed data sets

          3  currently shown by senior law and of course we have

          4  various on-line products and the various efforts to

          5  start working in an on-line environment.

          6            I noticed in today's newspaper, some parts of

          7  our society are certainly moving quickly to on-line

          8  methods.  StarNet was announced today and I think you'll

          9  find almost all newspapers within the next year or two

         10  will announce similar kinds of programs.

         11            I think one of the other things we have to

         12  remember in where we are today is the courtroom.  It is

         13  the court system that is the prime arbiter of disputes

         14  in our society.  We have ADR, we have rent-a-judges,

         15  rent-a-courts, private settlements, but in terms of

         16  important issues, in terms of criminal issues, it is the

         17  open public court that is the arbiter of many or most of

         18  those disputes.  Frankly, I think that's a value that we

         19  should maintain.  We should not allow technology, we

         20  should not allow misguided policy to take us away from

         21  that part of our culture.

         22            And obviously, as I mentioned, StarNet was

         23  announced today in your paper.  You might have seen the

         24  announcement a few weeks ago, most of the newspapers are

         25  going to be trying to do these services.

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          1            To most of you in the audience, you're the

          2  real pioneers of interactive on-line in the legal area.

          3  Two pioneers in the information super highway are West

          4  and Meade.  And later you have Orbit and Dialogue, DRS.

          5            So we've been on the Internet, we started the

          6  information super highway in this profession.  Most of

          7  us in this room, the people who work with us, several

          8  decades of experience, are in the beginning of that kind

          9  of technology.

         10            When you get to the court systems, basically

         11  when you get to what happens in courts, you find the

         12  less use of technology.  In terms of assessing today

         13  where that's at, we find if you look at the literature

         14  in the field, you find that courts are starting to use

         15  technology in case management, docket control, you see

         16  that probably in half the state courts.  You see that a

         17  little more than that in the federal system, in

         18  bankruptcy courts.

         19            Certainly research, you've seen a lot of

         20  growth and use of on-line, electronics, interactive,

         21  fixed data sets in court in terms of research.  The

         22  Arizona state court system have been pioneers in

         23  electronic distribution of opinions, their opinions,

         24  bulletin boards and publishers.  That has certainly

         25  increased access to the law.  That stands out, I might

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          1  add, not as the norm but as a pioneering exception.

          2            Why is it that when we talk about the

          3  profession, when we talk later about the future, talk

          4  about what's going on in the profession, what's about to

          5  go on, why is it that when you look at all parts of the

          6  judicial system, the courts seem to be the least or the

          7  most resistant to many of the technological changes

          8  going on?  I think there are a couple reasons.  They're

          9  well grounded reasons and again things we should keep in

         10  mind as we look at the impact of technology in the

         11  courts.

         12            First, and I think foremost, courts have the

         13  practice and custom, that which has happened directs

         14  that which will go in the future.

         15            And there's a very good reason.  If you

         16  believe in due process and you believe in a democratic

         17  society where you have a rule of law, not the rule of

         18  whatever the particular hot button of the political

         19  agenda happens to be, you have to believe strongly in

         20  the role of stare decisis.

         21            That's one of the reasons that the courts have

         22  been fairly slow in change.  I don't like that, I think

         23  that is exactly the role that ought to be played in the

         24  courts.

         25            Second, courts are a part of government.  The

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          1  government like all government bureaucracies, move

          2  slowly.  The federal level, for example, took eight and

          3  a half years to finally complete the RFP process for the

          4  federal telephone system.

          5            At the end of eight and a half years, one

          6  could argue that the technology for the phone system

          7  that they finally did install was a little antiquated.

          8  It was plugs.  It was a little more advanced than that.

          9  The newer process for the system 2000 took about six and

         10  a half years.  Obviously, government agencies,

         11  regardless of what branch of government have a whole

         12  variety of agendas.

         13            When you think of a court, what do you think

         14  of in terms of favorable attributes?  Wise, just, open

         15  to all, fair, entrepreneurial spirit isn't one of them,

         16  and I'm not sure it ought to be.  Efficiency, certainly.

         17  But entrepreneurial spirit I don't think ought to be

         18  first on that list.

         19            When you think for example, of a company

         20  selling products, entrepreneurial spirit ought to be one

         21  of the highest attributes.  It's those differences in

         22  agendas, those differences in position in our society

         23  that I think dictate the courts are a little more slow

         24  to move and I think that's appropriate.

         25            Last of all, what do courts do?  They resolve

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          1  peacefully disputes.  They give law.  They decide cases.

          2  At face, those are things that are done by and about

          3  people, not by and about machines.

          4            The court process should never be mystical

          5  gods.  Judges ought to judge.  The lawyer's mind is not

          6  going to be replaced by a machine.  They can be made

          7  more efficient, they can be made more ubiquitous, be

          8  made more accessible.  But we should not lose sight of

          9  the fact, and it's a drag on the introduction of

         10  technology, it is a good one that at base the process is

         11  a human process, about real people and real disputes.

         12            You know, when people talk about reform in the

         13  legal system, a comment and topic I might fill in with

         14  words later, when people talk about that, I sometimes

         15  think that they believe that you can reform the system

         16  by introduction of a schedule or the introduction of a

         17  machine or the introduction of some arbitrary standard.

         18            If you want to have the reformed system, the

         19  best way to do that thing is to have the best possible

         20  judges.  Judges give judgment.  They do not operate as

         21  gods.

         22            Those seem to me to be the main reasons why

         23  technology when we see it going on all about us have a

         24  little more slowly adopted in the courts and I think

         25  those are appropriate reasons.

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          1            I just had the honor of giving the key note at

          2  the National On-line Conference Tuesday in New York this

          3  week.  That was the 16th annual on-line conference.

          4  This is the first of these conferences.  And I think

          5  that kind of symbolizes the fact that some things

          6  operate and move a little more slowly, appropriately so.

          7            Getting to the future.  Well, getting to the

          8  future on the information super highway can be addressed

          9  I think in a couple ways.  Obviously, people are

         10  assessing information and are starting to assess

         11  information and interaction more in an electronic

         12  environment today and in the near future than they ever

         13  had in the past.  That's a truism.

         14            I want to caution one other point, and we get

         15  into this when we discuss briefly the Internet and

         16  Worldwide Web, there is a difference, and it's a

         17  difference that those of us in the judicial process and

         18  the American system of justice should appreciate.

         19  There's a difference between data and information.  You

         20  can have a huge, huge stream of unregurgitated data,

         21  that doesn't necessarily give you information.

         22            In any event, we have tremendous growth of

         23  electronic data.  And I don't have to belabor that, you

         24  see that every day in a variety of ways.  In the

         25  courtroom, you will see many examples I'm sure in the

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          1  next day or two, but you've seen a tremendous explosion

          2  in the use of multi media for presentation of evidence,

          3  both documentary and demonstrative.

          4            From time to time, I enjoy -- I quit trying

          5  cases in '93, I was invited to speak at the trial course

          6  during the summer.  Part of those courses would always

          7  have a demonstration of technology, primarily

          8  demonstrative technology of lawyers to better persuade

          9  juries and I was always impressed every single year how

         10  much those had improved.

         11            I remember the first animated videos that were

         12  done for the Puerto Rican hotel fire cases in '89 and

         13  '90.  Then the airplane crash cases that would often be

         14  redone to show where the flight path was, where the

         15  airplane was, when whatever was that happened, overlaid

         16  with voice from the air traffic controller and it gave

         17  you what appeared to be a bird's eye view of the entire

         18  accident from the airplane taking off to the air

         19  maintenance, to the airplane taking off to the ultimate

         20  tragedy.  Those have become fairly commonplace and

         21  important.

         22            You have seen getting to the future, you have

         23  seen tremendous growth and will see, I'm sure,

         24  additional tremendous growth in multimedia uses by

         25  counsel and by courts to show juries and to speed up the

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          1  process.

          2            I mentioned the Internet and Worldwide Web.

          3  You've all, I'm sure, had some experience with that.  My

          4  note last week, I set off to find out, for example, on

          5  the Internet how many places I could find in the United

          6  States code.  I found 20 cites for the United States

          7  code.  It was kind of interesting, two of the places I

          8  found the United States code were inaccurate.  They were

          9  accurate as of the time that particular part of the code

         10  was passed; but of course, as you know, like time, laws

         11  move on.

         12            And one of the cites I noticed put up a code

         13  existing after 1988, which would be a poor thing to

         14  counsel from assuming the Congress had actually met

         15  since 1988 and I think they have.

         16            But nonetheless, the point is if you haven't

         17  gone on the Web, you ought to.  You'll find it rapidly

         18  exploding, you'll find a whole variety of information,

         19  some of it complete, some of it not complete.

         20            You've seen arguments already about

         21  censorship, there's been articles written about Thomas

         22  that certain things are being put up by the leadership

         23  and certain things are not being put up by the same

         24  leadership.  I suppose you always have to choose what

         25  you make available and what you do not.

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          1            Nonetheless, in terms of getting to the

          2  future, the Web, the Internet, those are avenues that

          3  will continue.  I think that if you have not looked at

          4  Law Journal Extra, that's a service you ought to take a

          5  look at.  What they have tried to do and I gather

          6  StarNet announced this morning will try to do this, what

          7  they are trying to do is to take editors who manage

          8  materials on Internet and move now, using Net speed to

          9  Worldwide Web, taking the resources, reorganizing those

         10  resources under proprietary eye cons, adding proprietary

         11  material, very fine journalistic materials from the law

         12  journal, adding to what they find on the Internet and

         13  then allowing you to choose what it is you want to look

         14  at and read your own schedule.  It's an interesting use

         15  of that kind of resource.

         16            Propriety, putting together and trying to

         17  customize it for use.  Those services are available

         18  today.  Personal Journal, the Wall Street Journal is

         19  another effort to do that and you can buy the service

         20  today.  It will certainly become more ubiquitous in the

         21  future.

         22            Already the Net, in terms of bringing us to

         23  the glorious future, has drawn SEC filings.  I heard the

         24  other week, Gary Griffith, who's a technology writer,

         25  made a point that he was unable to find a particular TNQ

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          1  that he wanted, couldn't find it in disclosure but he

          2  could find it in one download off the Net.  You will

          3  find more and more of that kind of material available.

          4            The trick right now, and the in the immediate

          5  future as we get into this, the trick of course will be

          6  to organize that in a sense where it's useful for

          7  information, where it isn't that just data.

          8            Solzhenitsyn came to this country in 1971.

          9  Many of us awaited his arrival, hero of the Gulag, the

         10  first to flee the empire.  He gave his first speech at

         11  Harvard and I expected him to get up and attack of

         12  course censorship, attack the restriction, the freedom

         13  of expression he had sought and found in the west.  He

         14  got up and attacked the freedom of expression in the

         15  west, he said there's too much information; instead a

         16  cacophony of sound, a cacophony of news.  It takes

         17  people away from their natural roots and ability to

         18  understand human nature.

         19            So obviously, if you don't organize data in

         20  some useful fashion, it perhaps becomes cacophonous and

         21  drowns out thought.

         22            I was told last week that Solzhenitsyn was on

         23  a talk radio program.  I don't know if that's true but I

         24  thought it's a kind of interesting parentheses to his

         25  career.

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          1            Last of all, let me mention briefly where the

          2  administration thinks that it is going to -- how we're

          3  going to get to this future, through the National

          4  Information Infrastructure.  As you know, President

          5  Clinton appointed the NII Advisory Council in 1993.  I'm

          6  honored to serve on that group.  The administration -- I

          7  also say, of course, any views I express about the NII

          8  are not of course the views of the NII.  If you don't

          9  like the views I express, hey, they're not mine either.

         10            The current administration has established as

         11  a goal and is trying to marshal government resources to

         12  accomplish by the year 2,000 that we will connect

         13  through the NII which is defined as a dual switched

         14  interactive digital environment.  We will connect all

         15  schools, all libraries and all community centers by the

         16  year 2,000.  To accomplish that primarily and most

         17  entirely with private funds, probably even more so since

         18  November, it is estimated that 500 billion dollars has

         19  already been committed primarily from private sources,

         20  and Vice President Gore estimates that electronic

         21  commerce globally by the year 2,000, five years from now

         22  will be 3.5 trillion dollars.  So resources are there,

         23  obviously the incentive is there.

         24            Okay, so we get to the future, what is that

         25  going to look like?

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          1            Obviously, in general for electronic data,

          2  obviously, electronic data will be available anywhere to

          3  anyone at any time.  Infobots, I doubt we're going to

          4  see infobots, because I'm told they don't exist yet.

          5  But I've seen alpha tests of infobots, that's an agent

          6  that you rent or buy.  You instruct it, it goes to all

          7  the ubiquitous research services and collects whatever

          8  it is you want to collect at whatever price you want to

          9  collect it at and brings it back to you.

         10            Those are in development, some of you have

         11  seen some of that early technology.  WestClips is an

         12  effort to do something like that for journals, personal

         13  journals.  I'm told that's the future of electronic

         14  data.

         15            Certainly law firms, courts will require --

         16  some have started to -- law firms are already moving in

         17  this direction, courts will follow, to require data, to

         18  require documents, briefs to be on some kind of fixed

         19  data set.  CD-ROM is a fixed data set now, hard disk

         20  perhaps in the future or some other form of fixed data

         21  set.  The point is it's fixed it's inexpensive, it's

         22  ubiquitous, it is portable, you can pick it up move

         23  round, use it, swap it, send it or whatever.  You've

         24  seen law firms moving toward that, you've seen some

         25  courts talking about that.

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          1            Certainly, in terms of the impact of this

          2  technology on the law, there are three major areas.  Law

          3  firms of the future, you'll certainly see and start to

          4  see activity.  Right now you have law firms looking

          5  hooking up to such things as Lotus Notes.

          6            With swapping back and forth to remote

          7  locations, where there is complete interactivity, you

          8  will see that move more slowly into the courts, but some

          9  of that in the courts.  I think the major places we're

         10  going to be in your future will be electronic filing,

         11  the sharing of information from court to lawyer,

         12  administrative agency, from court to lawyer for that

         13  matter.  Access to the citizen but additional materials

         14  available so you can file your brief, get your ruling,

         15  it's available for all to see, corrections to be made.)

         16            Judge Rubin told you he has been doing that

         17  for the last four years.  I'm honored to have tried two

         18  matters in front of Judge Rubin while I was practicing.

         19  It's a remarkable experience and the thing I -- the

         20  thing that so many of us cherish about Judge Rubin and

         21  really the least-- I think the least of what Judge Rubin

         22  brings to the bench is his penchant for using efficient

         23  technology.  What he really brings to the bench is

         24  judgment, really solid, fast, efficient well done

         25  judgment.

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          1            The thing that would tickle a lot of us

          2  frankly that are excited about what's happening with

          3  technology is that you sometimes see these articles that

          4  will tell you that technology is a matter of age.  You

          5  know, that your nine year old kid knows more about

          6  technology than you will ever know.  You read that and

          7  think yeah, that's probably true; because they use video

          8  games and all the rest of it, that it's an age matter.

          9            I think Judge Rubin was appointed to bench by

         10  President Eisenhower, yet is one of the most -- one of

         11  the two or three most far thinking judges in the use of

         12  technology as it exists today, to make cases move

         13  faster, make them more efficient and make judgment

         14  better.

         15            Obviously, those things will continue and

         16  hopefully they will continue.

         17            Last of all, I think when we get to the

         18  situation of courts, I think the proper use of

         19  technology must recognize oral tradition.  One of the

         20  great things about the use of interactivity in courts,

         21  filing briefs, getting your judgments, getting your

         22  decisions, running your dockets and doing that

         23  interactively, it ought to give the courts the time to

         24  devote to that that which courts are to do, that is to

         25  hear lawyers, hear cases and not get too far away from

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          1  our oral tradition.  I have not seen in my personal

          2  experience, I have not seen courts that use more and

          3  more technology veer from that tradition.  I don't think

          4  I've seen that.

          5            I've seen articles that lawyers would somehow

          6  do their arguments on-line, I guess like a chat line

          7  thing.  You look at some of those chat services, I hope

          8  not any time soon, you know what I'm talking about.

          9  They always use first names.

         10            And I've seen articles, technology articles

         11  that suggest that the future all of our arguments in

         12  court -- maybe we could have virtual juries, result in

         13  kind of virtual judgments.  I think that would be a

         14  mistake.  But I haven't seen in so far in courts that

         15  have aggressively moved forward in the use of technology

         16  any information that do that.  In fact, the reverse.

         17            If you move administrative matters, if you

         18  move calendars more efficiently, if you have much more

         19  efficient communication, that ought to allow more time

         20  for judges and the judicial system to do what it does

         21  best.

         22            Last, in terms of the courtroom of the future,

         23  you will see, of course, continued use of technology.

         24  And you're going to see so much of it today that I'm not

         25  going to outline it for you.  You'll see some very

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          1  practical, exciting, useful things to allow juries to

          2  see demonstrative evidence, to allow them to move that

          3  demonstrative evidence quickly so there aren't delays,

          4  so it's presented in a fair and official way, so that

          5  the juries can do their job and do better, too.  You'll

          6  see a lot of examples of that, too, I won't outline

          7  those for you.

          8            The law school of the future will also be

          9  affected, and that's part of our system.  Teaching will

         10  be done more effectively.  We have several projects

         11  underway in Minnesota.  I must say I was instructed when

         12  I came down here that one of the things I had to do when

         13  I left, and I've got to go back this afternoon was to

         14  take Dean Sullivan with me, bring back Dean Sullivan.

         15  We're honored to have the Dean coming to the University

         16  of Minnesota Law School.

         17            You'll see much more of teaching done

         18  interactively.  We're doing that in Minnesota, we're

         19  doing that at Harvard, we're doing that in a number of

         20  other universities.  That allows students not only to

         21  have better access to the notes of their professors, and

         22  interact with other students, but also to use community

         23  resources.  That's a euphemism for lawyer, to allow

         24  practitioners, to allow judges to participate in the

         25  teaching process.  Maybe not to drive across town and

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          1  dedicate time for a semester, but to come on-line and

          2  discuss interactively various projects with various

          3  classes and open up that kind of resource.  That is here

          4  with us, it certainly can expand more quickly.

          5            In addition to experts on-line, you have all

          6  the demonstrative things you will see.  Many of the

          7  demonstrative things you will see for presentation of

          8  evidence to juries has obvious applications in the

          9  teaching area.

         10            Let me -- that's kind of a very short run of

         11  some of the whales that I think you'll see in the next 5

         12  to 10 years.

         13            Let me conclude this way.  I think the role of

         14  the judiciary, the role of the American justice system

         15  is one of the finest and probably one of the brightest

         16  parts of our society.  I think it's under attack.  I

         17  think that it's outrageous that people are attacking

         18  lawyers and it's outrageous that that is going on today.

         19            I won't belabor the point except to say two

         20  things.  If you pick up a newspaper, any newspaper you

         21  want, you will see on the front page the way other

         22  societies resolve their differences.  Neighbors killing

         23  neighbors, neighbors raping neighbors.  If you look at

         24  the societies where that takes place, and on the fault

         25  lines of race or the economy, you find there are

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          1  societies where lawyers per capita aren't very high.  I

          2  mean, I know that we're told there are too many lawyers

          3  in our society, it's a terrible blight on our society.

          4            Well, let's take a look at the reverse.  Where

          5  are the societies that have nirvana, of having very few

          6  lawyers per capita,

          7            Rwanda, Bosnia.  If you believe in peaceful

          8  conflict resolution, and I tell my conservative friends,

          9  if you believe in the rule of law, then you have to love

         10  lawyers.

         11            The attack on the judicial system and attack

         12  on lawyers is misguided, it is dangerous.  I think it's

         13  one of the few things that can stop us in the American

         14  21st century.

         15            I want to leave the real future of the

         16  American 21st century, it's just the stuff we've been

         17  talking about.  If you were to construct a world and a

         18  country most and best poised to take advantage of that

         19  feature, we are geographically away from markets, global

         20  markets, of course are away from any of those markets,

         21  but in the information age and the application of the

         22  technologies we're really talking about, after all, it's

         23  been the legal profession, it's been this profession

         24  that has been pioneers in the use of electronic research

         25  and the use of electronic on-line activities and will be

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          1  part of this profession that carries on by far, that

          2  carries on after the revolution.  If you were talking

          3  about the 21st century, and I think Vice President Gore

          4  is right, the first year of that century will see 3.5

          5  trillion dollars in electronic commerce and more every

          6  year thereafter.

          7            If you would try to construct a country, a

          8  society best able to take advantage of that future, what

          9  attributes would that country have?  First and foremost,

         10  it would be a country that reveled, absolutely reveled

         11  in diversity of thought, diversity of people.  What

         12  would that mean?  You would want a country that was

         13  founding, that its founding document reveled in that

         14  kind of diversity.

         15            Of all the United Nations countries, all 126

         16  of them, 10 have written founding documents only one of

         17  which, only one of which recognizes the primal nature of

         18  information.

         19            Intellectual property is the first property

         20  recognized in the United States constitution, the

         21  Constitution, not one of the amendments.  The founding

         22  document of this country, the very first amendment

         23  revels in the idea that people, the expression of views,

         24  the expression of religious views are to be widely

         25  encouraged, there be no law to stop it.  The society, an

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          1  absolute society based on the idea that the exchange of

          2  the widest possible information, the sharing of the

          3  widest possible views such that no law could be passed

          4  to prevent it is the first principle of that society.

          5            So when I tell you that America is poised to

          6  take advantage of what we have been discussing in

          7  general, poised for the 21st century, I mean it.  And in

          8  the first part of that will be a society based, that

          9  revels, that absolutely underscores as its founding

         10  document a belief in diversity and a belief in

         11  information.  And second of all, a society, the second

         12  attribute would be a society that absolutely understands

         13  that the most important kind of property you can

         14  possibly be talking about above all else is intellectual

         15  property.

         16            Do you think it's a coincidence that 56

         17  percent of all data bases are created in this country

         18  and 2 percent in Japan, 32 in all of Europe.  Look at

         19  the intellectual property protection given in those

         20  countries, compared to the intellectual property

         21  protection given in this country.

         22            The second law passed in this country's

         23  history was for copyright protection and it's in

         24  Article 1 of the constitution.  One of the first federal

         25  offices ever opened was the office of patents.  And why

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          1  in the constitution did we decide to give that kind of

          2  primal protection?  Because it would aid in the

          3  development of the useful arts, the exact reason why you

          4  put that kind of power behind intellectual property.

          5  That's the second attribute if you were constructing the

          6  perfect society to take advantage of the 21st century.

          7            What's the third attribute?  The American

          8  justice system.  There are a lot of ways you can resolve

          9  things without having courts, without having lawyers.

         10  Get yourself a large group of thugs with clubs, that

         11  works pretty well.  Works pretty well in a lot of parts

         12  of society, works pretty well in parts of the world

         13  today.  The clubs get a little better, they shoot

         14  weapons and kill people a little more efficiently, but

         15  it's the same principle.

         16            If you want to build an information society,

         17  you have to have peaceful conflict resolution.  If you

         18  don't have peaceful conflict resolution, you can't have

         19  an information society.  I don't expect to find Rwanda

         20  for example, Bosnia for example, leading the information

         21  revolution in the next century, unfortunately.  You need

         22  to have peaceful conflict resolution and you've got to

         23  do it without the dead hand, the dead foot of a

         24  government.  And it's impossible to have that happen

         25  unless you have an American justice system with a

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          1  private guard because in truth, if you have a major

          2  economy and you are resolving issues and resolving

          3  controversies in a peaceful way, there are only two ways

          4  to do it, one way is the American justice system, the

          5  other way is get rid of all the lawyers.  And then you

          6  will have large federal or state bureaucracies to

          7  resolve those disputes, dozens of them, make the

          8  Pentagon look small.

          9            So the third attribute, if you want to grab

         10  the 21st century by the forearm, wrestle it to the

         11  ground and own it, you have to have the American justice

         12  system, you have to have the belief in intellectual

         13  property and above all else, you have to have a society

         14  based on diversity of thought and respect and

         15  understanding of the importance of that diversity.

         16  That's why you are the information warriors of the 21st

         17  century.  That is why all of us in this endeavor have a

         18  terrific, tremendous future.  We've done pretty well so

         19  far as it is, and that's why America will be led by the

         20  judicial system, by the bar, by this part of our economy

         21  into a 21st American information century.  I look

         22  forward, our company looks forward to working with you

         23  to accomplish that.

         24            You're going to see a lot of really fun stuff

         25  in the next day and a half.  I thank you for your time.

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