At the heart of Spindle Law’s content is an organized collection of rules supported by authorities.  At first we supported only authorities based on reported federal decisions.  Last week we added authorities based on federal rules of evidence and procedure.  Other types of authorities—federal, state, foreign, international; statutes, regulations, unreported cases, secondary sources, and others—are planned, although it will take us a while to get to them all.  We added rules of evidence and procedure early on because they are needed for evidence law.

When we first started development of this web site, we spent a lot of time considering various color schemes.  Early on David was an advocate for red based on research that sport teams with red uniforms have a higher winning percentage than those of other colors.   I, on the other hand, was an advocate for anything other than blue based on the entirely unscientific theory that blue was overused.  So red it was.

Today I read about a recent study that suggests “red can improve performance on detail-oriented tasks,” whereas blue increases creativity.  If one were to buy into these results, it presents an interesting dilemma when designing the visual elements of a research tool.   Certainly, when it comes to finding answers to legal questions, details matter.  Unlike my two partners, I am not a lawyer, but I suspect creativity also plays a role in good legal arguments.