Spindle Law is a site dedicated to enabling and encouraging research and community contribution about the law.  Recently, and during a few bursts of energy last year, I have been working on and contributing to a small section on the site on the law of forum non conveniens (or “FNC”).  You can see the results here.

FNC is an area of civil procedure that often is an early flash point in litigation, generally involving foreign parties litigating in U.S. courts.  As a foreign party myself, at least relatively speaking (I was born in England), I have become increasingly interested in FNC.  I try to follow the case law and read the secondary source materials when I can.  In addition, I have had the great opportunity to work on FNC in practice (though the views expressed about it here and on the site are mine alone not those of the law firm where I am of counsel), including spirited debates with colleagues, opposing counsel and before the court.

I built the section largely by reviewing relevant opinions — some that are known to have defined aspects of the law, others that were recently issued — and by extracting and layering the rules and topics (collectively, the branches) together into the Spindle Law tree.   I have tried to organize the section according to the logic of the law and generally the way it appeared in the opinions, but, as our Extended Contributor Guide notes, “[c]reating the organization of any legal issue is more art than science, and if given the same legal issue to organize, Spindle Law contributors might organize it somewhat differently.”

One of the most satisfying aspects of developing the section was ensuring that no topic or rule had more than seven descendant branches.  This principle, (the “Rule of Seven”) is based on the theory that seven is about the maximum number of items a person can hold in her mind at once.  (For some of us, even seven is a stretch!).  This structural requirement translates into substantive analysis.  In other words, it means thinking both broadly and narrowly about the particular issue in order to divide and sub-divide it into additional topics and rules.  The goal is to set out the law in a way that flows naturally.  To anyone who will listen, I have compared the experience of organizing the law in this way to aligning one’s chakras.  I urge you to try it.

Although I think the section answers a lot of the important questions about FNC, it undoubtedly has a long way to go:  more branches, authorities, comments.  I hope to dedicate time regularly to digesting new authorities and contributing their rules and the authorities they cite.  As important, if not more so, my goal is to involve others in this endeavor and in the project of building other areas of the law – even micro-topics — on the site.  Doing so allows you to think more expansively about an area of the law and help others understand it too, while demonstrating your expertise and connecting you to a community of lawyers thinking about the law in a new way.

If there’s an area of law that you’re jazzed about (your own FNC), whatever it is, find the best place on the Spindle Tree, and dive right in:  add some topics and rules, contribute some authorities.  Got a favorite, beloved case?  Be the first to add the propositions that it stands for.  Or comment on the authorities and branches in the areas of law already covered on the site.  If we can help, let us know.

From the day we first opened up registration on the site, new members were able to add and edit authorities.   But the ability to edit the tree of rules and topics—the fundamental structure of the legal information on the site—was reserved for more experienced community members while the site was in the early stages of development.  We’re by no means done with the development of the site, but we’ve decided it’s reached a stage where the material covered on the site is ready to rapidly grow.   As part of that effort, we decided to relax some constraints and as of today all registered members can edit the tree.

We encourage people to get their feet wet with authorities when contributing to the site.   It’s easy to add new authorities using the “contribute new authority” link at the top of the authority list and even easier to edit an existing authority:  just rollover the authority with your mouse and click the edit link.   Filling in missing fields on authorities as indicated by question marks is a great place to start.

But you may want to add authorities where there is no appropriate rule in the tree yet.   With this change you can just add the rule yourself.  To add a branch to the tree, just click on the “add+” link in the narrow down box on the right.  You then fill in the short and long text and click on the image to select the kind of branch you are creating.    More guidance on how to edit and create branches can be found in the extended contributor guide.

We expect this change to be the first of many over the coming months to encourage contributions.

Thank you to Kevin Gerson, Director of the UCLA Law Library, and the students in his Advanced Legal Research course who welcomed me to their class last Friday.  I had the opportunity to demonstrate how Spindle Law works both as a research tool and as a growing site for lawyers and law students to share and contribute their legal knowledge.  There were quite a lot of interesting questions during and after the class.  And, we’re very excited at the prospect of having some Bruins participating in the project.