AALL has conducted a State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources. The report presents the results of a survey of primary online legal resources and whether these resources are official and capable of being authenticated. In short, “How trustworthy are state-level primary legal resources on the Web?”
The answer (from the executive summary):
A significant number of the state online legal resources are official but none are authenticated or afford ready authentication by standard methods. State online primary legal resources are therefore not sufficiently trustworthy. Citizens and law researchers may reasonably doubt their authority and should approach such resources critically.
According to AALL President, Sally Holterhoff, the report is the focus of a National Summit on Authentication of Digital Information, which AALL will hold April 20-21 in Chicago. The 50 delegates to the summit are judges, state government officials, attorneys, and leaders of AALL and of other organizations, such as the American Bar Association. All of them were invited to participate because of their interest in exploring legal and technological solutions to the issues raised in the report.