The Geek In Review Podcast – Episode 45
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[00:00:00] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, that kind of puts your feet to the fire a little bit, but you guys handled yourself.
[00:00:04] Greg Lambert: That’s all right. I wear asbestos underwear, so.
[00:00:08] Marlene Gebauer: I had too much information. Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast designed to cover the legal information profession with a slant toward technology and management. I’m Marlene Gebauer.
[00:00:28] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. So Marlene, before we jump into this week’s topics, I did want to recognize Jerry David DeSica for the music that we use on the show, as well as Eve Searles, who is a research attorney at Jackson Walker in San Antonio, who collaborates with Jerry on the music. So after talking with a few listeners at AALL this week, I learned that not everyone listens to the end of the show. And I know they kept asking me, hey, who does the great music? So I want to make sure that I put it all the way up front and let everyone know if you’ve never listened all the way to the end, please do. We close with Devil’s Backbone Bar, which is a great song.
[00:01:11] Marlene Gebauer: It is a great song. And his stuff is available on iTunes. It’s available on Spotify. So, you know, if you want to listen to him, please do. We think he’s great. And I think you will, too.
[00:01:24] Greg Lambert: Well, it’s great to be back from Washington, D.C., where both of us attended the American Association of Law Libraries conference. And most importantly, I am now officially finished with all of my presidential duties. And now I can just go back to being a normal member.
[00:01:43] Marlene Gebauer: No, no, I don’t think that’ll ever happen.
[00:01:46] Greg Lambert: I know what whatever normal means. So but Marlene, you went early and attended the PLLIP summit as well as presented on a panel at the conference. Tell us a little bit about what you did.
[00:01:59] Marlene Gebauer: Greg, where to begin? So PLLIP is the Private Law Librarians Summit. And this year was Summit X, which is our 10th year. And we were focusing a lot, not only on where the profession is going and how we can contribute, but also we had a design sprint experience for the participants, which I think everybody really enjoyed. The keynote was Jordan Furlong, who had some really good thoughts in terms of where librarians and information professionals fit in, in the new landscape of legal. And there was also a panel, and our friend Toby Brown was speaking on that. And it was, I think he won over the audience when he mentioned that Mark Estes, who was a longstanding member of AALL, was actually his first boss and how much he learned from him. And he got a laugh from the crowd when he said, there are two things that matter in law firms, revenue and profit.
[00:03:01] Greg Lambert: Yeah, Toby can speak for hours on those two topics.
[00:03:05] Marlene Gebauer: That’s true. In terms of the conference itself, I presented on a panel with Gene O’Grady and Ron Friedman and Darren Fox on sustainable innovation. I think it went really well in terms of, Ron kind of set the stage for everybody in terms of the general overview about innovation and what factors are contributing to it. I was offering some practical applications of those things. And Dean Fox, he had some great content that he was talking about and basically showcased what they’re doing at OU Law. And it was very, very impressive.
[00:03:41] Greg Lambert: Yeah, and Darren works with, and I believe it was episode 6, that’s how far back it was, when we had Kenton Bryce on from OU. So it’s a small world out there, especially in the law libraries.
[00:03:55] Marlene Gebauer: Kenton was actually presenting at the same time we were about what they’re doing with virtual reality at the law school, and I was sad that I couldn’t make that, because that was really fascinating stuff. stuff. Yeah. In terms of some of the other things that I was able to stop in and attend, there was a great deep dive session, three hour session on data analytics, where and this actually got some press. So a group of librarians put this together, they did a comparison of some of the big data analytics resources and, you know, kind of figured out where the gaps were and what was, you know, what was missing, what wasn’t. And we have been dying for that type of information for a long time because a lot of people just see analytics and they don’t really think too deeply about, you know, where’s it coming from? How are they gathering it? What are they looking at? And this way it gives us some real insights. And we’re able to convey that to the people that we’re putting information together for. I also thought it was very interesting. There was a couple of panels after that and they were vendor panels. I thought that they were very forthright and honest about some of the challenges that are present when you’re dealing with analytics and trying to gather the data, particularly, I think this was particularly clear in the state court session. You know, that’s kind of one of the grails in terms of getting docket information analytics for state courts. But there’s so many different ways that the data is collected or not collected. Many times there’s just blank fields. And that’s a real challenge to be able to provide analytics that you can rely on. So I thought that that was wonderful. Some of the other things that I saw, data visualization, great program on that about how you can use Power BI and Excel even to show analytics in terms of how you’re managing your information platforms. There was a session on implicit bias that I didn’t attend, but I heard was wonderful. And so I’m looking forward to hearing more about that. skills sessions that I thought were very good. And the folks that were providing information there. I mean, we’re very forthcoming and very honest about their experiences and sort of what they did right and, you know, what they learned from.
[00:06:23] Greg Lambert: Sounds like you had a packed schedule.
[00:06:25] Marlene Gebauer: I did. I did. When do I not?
[00:06:29] Greg Lambert: One of the cool things that I got to do while I was in DC was to go spend a day on the hill with my fellow Texan, Dr. Yvonne Chandler from the University of North Texas Library School. And we got to talk with the staff of a number of Texas politicians. I went to Senator Ted Cruz’s office. I went to Senator John Cornyn’s office and a local Houston rep, Sheila Jackson Lee, and met with their respective staff members to ask for three things. So whenever you go on the hill, you need an ask. So the first ask was for full funding of the Library of Congress. The second was to bring up the vote for Free Pacer.
[00:07:15] Marlene Gebauer: Free Pacer.
[00:07:18] Greg Lambert: And the third was to let the Free the Internet bill on net neutrality go to the floor for debate and
[00:07:23] Marlene Gebauer: potential vote. Free the Internet. Free the Internet. Free the Internet.
[00:07:27] Greg Lambert: So I have to say that I was really impressed with the staff of Sheila Jackson Lee and of Senator Cruz. They were very professional and we, you know, we had a good conversation even if we didn’t see eye
[00:07:40] Marlene Gebauer: to eye on certain topics, which was net neutrality. Which is unfortunate.
[00:07:46] Greg Lambert: I know. So we, you know, could talk about it and, you know, leave feeling that we had been heard from those two offices. Now, Senator Cornyn’s office, on the other hand, I would just say they weren’t as friendly. And I’m going to chalk it up to it being a Friday afternoon and it was really hot. But that was one where I think they were a little bit more confrontational, especially on the net neutrality issue than they needed to be. That’s just the way it goes on the hill. You know, that’s what I hear. So I did want to thank Emily Feltron, who’s the Director of Government Relations at AALL, and a frequent guest here on the Geek and Review for making the day on the Hill a reality. AALL’s government relations effort is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. So this was a great way to celebrate by getting people up on Capitol Hill and talking to the respective government officials. We had about 60 members that went up and talked. So from 25 states.
[00:08:49] Marlene Gebauer: That’s great. I think that’s great that you had that opportunity to get there and, you know, make your case and be heard and that they were able to hear you. Before we get to this week’s information inspirations, we wanted to put in a plug for our upcoming AALL webinar on podcasting essentials. We’re going to talk about the basics of starting your own podcast, ranging from picking topics to selecting equipment to interviewing guests. It’s on August 21st and there’s a link in the show notes to sign up. And now for this week’s information inspirations.
[00:09:28] Greg Lambert: So Marlee, my first information inspiration isn’t exactly a new story, but for many of our listeners that may have read the headlines about how if you use judicial analytics with French judges, you could actually face a five-year prison sentence. So there’s been quite an uproar on social media about this, and I’ll link to the Above the Law article. And, you know, it’s controversial if the Above the Law runs with stories like this. So, but true. Surprisingly, there may be more to the story than the flashy headlines of going to jail.
[00:10:05] Speaker D: may imply.
[00:10:06] Greg Lambert: So I did what any good podcaster will do, and that is I reached out to a French lawyer. Oh, of course. So I actually did, a French lawyer who’s practicing in the UK, her name is Tara Taubman Basarian, and asked her for an insider’s look at the issue. And Tara is with Data Rainbow, which is in the EU and helps with people and organizations know their rights and liabilities when it comes to privacy protections. So Tara said that the new law has some roots in both the tradition of civil law and the civil law’s protection for judges’ information. But there may be some technology fears in there as well. So I asked her to briefly touch on why civil law is different from the common law, which we use here in the States, and why that may have affected the French government to create this law.
[00:11:07] Speaker D: Law should be, in theory, only the text, what is codified. The judge should not create law. And you don’t have these things where in the common law, you have dissent judge opinions given on the court case, and where even they said, I did think that, I, no, the French court is on the name of the nation, and the judge is kind of standing behind, only applying the text. It was mentioning the name of the judge. That is the issue that they’ve created, that you could go to jail if you mentioned, if you had analytics that could do the search through the name of a judge. could go to jail if you mentioned, if you had analytics that could do the search through the name of the judge.
[00:11:45] Greg Lambert: So then I asked her what she thought the reasoning was for France to come out with such a harsh law, which could land someone in jail for up to five years, for just using analytics, which identify the judge. Was it some sort of fear-based law to fight the oncoming technology, or was it France protecting the anonymity of the judges and the structure of civil law?
[00:12:12] Speaker D: Both of them. There is also a general sphere of anything technology coming in. They don’t know where it goes and how people could use the analytics. They don’t want the judgment to become personal because everything is done so that you cannot actually choose which judge you will go to. And they are scared that you will start to know in advance what a judge would say if it’s known by the general public.
[00:12:39] Greg Lambert: So finally, I ask Tara about if France is going to keep this at the judge level, or is it going to expand the limits on data analytics to lawyers and others within the judicial system?
[00:12:47] Speaker D: They did a pilot test of using analytics in a few courts. They stopped after three months. I can’t find any report on what went wrong.
[00:13:03] Greg Lambert: Was that this particular analytic tool that was not performing, did they not get the right training or they’re just scared of anything that this technology, which is, again, the tree could be right.
[00:13:16] Speaker D: There has been a recent, they call it the G7, meeting of international lawyers. They are going to work on the use of analytics in the legal system. So there are hopes.
[00:13:30] Greg Lambert: Well, at least Tara seems to think there’s hope for the future with this G7 group.
[00:13:36] Marlene Gebauer: A little.
[00:13:36] Greg Lambert: Yeah. But it sounds like there’s a blending of protecting the judge’s anonymity going on, but there’s also a big fear of technology in France. So I’ll keep an ear out on what this G7 group is going to come up with and whether this is a one-off on laws against analytics or if this is an upcoming trend.
[00:13:57] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, will everybody follow France? I don’t know.
[00:14:01] Greg Lambert: I don’t know.
[00:14:02] Marlene Gebauer: So for my inspirations, I have a couple of things and they center around surveys. Now, Greg, at AALL, you actually had the opportunity to be part of a podcast, the On the Road podcast with Femi Cadmus talking about the AALL State of the Profession Survey. So tell us a little bit about that. How did that go?
[00:14:27] Greg Lambert: Yeah, it was great. So the Legal Talk Network had a series of podcasts that they were interviewing while at AALL, and this was sponsored by Fast Case. And so we got interviewed by Fast Case’s Phil Rosenthal and Chuck Lowry, and we discussed the inaugural edition of the State of the Profession Survey that AALL put out earlier this year. And I know we have talked about a few times here on the podcast. So Femi and I sat down and had a really good interview. You could tell that Chuck had actually dived pretty deeply into there because he was asking us some very specific questions on that.
[00:15:11] Marlene Gebauer: So the other survey that I wanted to talk about was CLOCK’s State of the Industry Survey. CLOCK released the State of the Industry Survey report this week, and there’s lots of interesting pieces of data throughout the survey. Now this is the second annual survey on in-house counsel report from CLOCK. It’s an all-in-house survey, but there’s relevant sections for those in law firms wanting to get a feel for the current legal industry environment. There’s sections on expenditures, headcount, technology, and law firm evaluations. CLOCK always puts out a top-notch survey report and, Greg, it’s free.
[00:15:52] Greg Lambert: It is free. You don’t hear that a lot with CLOCK.
[00:15:55] Marlene Gebauer: Free the CLOCK survey. Free the CLOCK survey.
[00:15:58] Greg Lambert: Yes. Hashtag free the CLOCK survey.
[00:16:01] Marlene Gebauer: Right. Artificial Lawyer has a very good synopsis of the technology section of the report, which is probably one of the most relevant sections for our listeners.
[00:16:10] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Well, I can tell you, I sent this survey around to a number of people at my work. All right. Well, that’s a wrap for this week’s Information Inspirations.
[00:16:22] Marlene Gebauer: Greg, I’ve decided to call this podcast episode our international podcast episode. While we were at AALL, we had the chance to discuss some of the changes occurring at one of the well-known foreign legal information providers, VLEX. Recently, VLEX merged with another foreign legal provider, Justice, and we talked with Luis Faus and Massoud Jarami about the merger, how difficult it is to obtain foreign legal materials, a little bit about France’s ban on judge analytics, because we just can’t get enough.
[00:16:58] Greg Lambert: Can’t get enough of that.
[00:17:00] Marlene Gebauer: And what differences in processes they have dealing with different foreign jurisdictions versus what we may be used to having in the U.S.
[00:17:15] Greg Lambert: So joining us today is Massoud Jarami and Luis Faus from VLEX. Thank you very much for joining us. Luis, I’m going to have you do a quick introduction so our audience can learn a little bit more about you.
[00:17:29] Juan Faus: Hi. Thank you for having us today. Well, I’m Luis Faus. I’m the founder and CEO of VLEX. VLEX is a global legal research and legal software provider originally created in Barcelona, Spain, but with operations now in a number of countries, and through the acquisition of Justice, even more, a number of more countries.
[00:17:53] Ali Gerami: I’m Massoud Jarami. I’m the managing director of Justice Publishing and now part of the VLEX group of companies. We started back in 1986 and we have been disseminating legal information all these 33 years, going through amazing phases in how legal information is being seen, produced, disseminated, used, and the next phase, being part of VLEX, is going to be another exciting phase.
[00:18:22] Greg Lambert: So the two companies, Justice and VLEX, recently merged together, and I was curious, as a technology company, how difficult was it to combine the content, to combine the licensing, and everything else that is involved in combining the two companies?
[00:18:30] Juan Faus: company, how difficult was it to combine the content, to combine the licensing, and everything else that is involved in combining the two companies? Well, it’s interesting. I mean, we are in that process currently. So the acquisition happened three months ago. So we have completed integration of financial, CRM, and all systems, and some integration in back office and content. But it’s not completely completed yet. But I must say that because both companies share a culture, a vision, both are very innovative. We are approaching this process as a discovery and learning process between two companies, two teams. I think that we are going to see very interesting things in the coming months.
[00:19:24] Ali Gerami: Absolutely right. And we have very similar teams, very similar operations, very similar vision. And therefore, that has helped us to do what we’ve done much more quickly than we had expected. One of the areas we are working on is the data side, as you mentioned, the contracts. So we are in touch with various data partners to make sure that the licenses that we have, or Justice has had could be applied to the VLEX platform. And generally, the reception has been very positive. So we are going through that exercise now. Amendment agreements to take us through that process. And also, the feedback from the market has been very positive. They see those who knew both companies, they see this as a very exciting coming together, and we are not going to disappoint them.
[00:20:17] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, it’s good that clients are feeling very positive about this merger. That’s always a good thing. Can you discuss the behaviors of justice systems globally? How do they differ from the U.S.?
[00:20:30] Ali Gerami: They differ substantially, not just from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but also court to court and individual to individual. As part of collecting judgments and cases for our collections, we have been in touch with many courts across the globe. And the reaction has been so varied. There are some individuals in charge of courts who have been very keen to make sure that their judgments are disseminated as widely as possible. Another group want to protect what they have. So we’ve gone through very interesting discussions, persuasions, and- – You’re smiling when you’re saying this.
[00:21:08] Marlene Gebauer: persuasions, and- You’re smiling when you’re saying this.
[00:21:12] Ali Gerami: That’s right. But on the whole, we have managed to put the collection together, but it wasn’t easy. And then you look at countries like Canada and Australia who have very advanced systems for disseminating the cases. But in the UK, there’s no single machinery responsible for this. No one wants to take responsibility. You look at Bailey, where the law of the land should be available to everyone free of charge. They nearly went bankrupt because they don’t have much support. So unfortunately, there’s huge variation across the globe.
[00:21:47] Marlene Gebauer: What would you say was sort of the hardest jurisdiction, if you will, in terms of trying to get information?
[00:21:54] Ali Gerami: Well, the hardest in terms of not having anyone responsible for things, probably the United Kingdom. But in terms of the time it takes to achieve results, various regions in the Caribbean. There’s a lot of willingness, but things don’t move as quickly as perhaps some other parts of the world.
[00:22:13] Greg Lambert: Now, we’re recording this at the AALL conference. And one of the things we did earlier in the week on Friday was to go to the Capitol Hill and pitch for free PACER, PACER being the federal docket system here in the United States. Have you looked at… Actually, I think maybe back up a little bit. Are dockets similar in other countries as they are here? Or how is it that the courts track that type of information? And how freely available is that for you to gather?
[00:22:46] Juan Faus: Well, it depends per country. But I think that I’m saying in continental Europe, for example, you don’t have access to dockets, usually because of privacy issues. And in Latin America, it’s more or less the same thing. So we have a huge interest on dockets, where they are available. But what you see typically is in countries where the access of the primary law is easy through the government, So you have access to cases or official gazettes or legislation maybe on the public websites from the government, but then you don’t have access to dockets. And where you have access to dockets, then you don’t have access to legislation or case laws. So it’s always complicated to have everything in one jurisdiction. But I mean, we support free access to the law globally and access to dockets as well. We think that transparency is good for citizens, but it’s good as well for publishers as ours to innovate and create real products based on actual value that we create, not on controlling the access to data that should be free to use by everyone.
[00:24:06] Ali Gerami: And just to add to that, our experience in the UK, an official process to handle dockets is even less defined than the cases and the judgments. There are a handful of small companies who do their own products and services, and they are very protective of what they are doing. So it is a difficult area.
[00:24:27] Marlene Gebauer: So recently, France banned analytics of judges. As a company that does analytics, do you see this as a trend or do you see this more a one-off situation? What types of analytics do you offer?
[00:24:43] Juan Faus: I hope it’s a one-off thing, but I don’t know. With Europe, you never know. We do court analytics and judge analytics in Spain at the moment. We have been doing that for a couple of years with great success. And actually, we plan to replicate this kind of products in other markets, including jurisdictions that justice has been covering for a while. And again, I think transparency is good for everyone. So banning analytics, it’s not the way to go. But we do not control what happens.
[00:25:24] Ali Gerami: Yes, this piece of legislation took everyone by surprise. It is reactionary, and there’s no justification for it. We are talking about public data for the benefit of the public. And to take this away, it just does not make any sense. So as Luis said, this is hopefully a one-off, and I really cannot see this to spread.
[00:25:47] Marlene Gebauer: Is there anything that, you know, people can do to sort of help Is there anything that people can do to sort of help support your initiative of free information? We’re hoping that this is a one-off, but is there anything that people can do to kind of guide that decision-making in the future?
[00:26:06] Ali Gerami: Well, going back to a previous question you had about obtaining permissions and license to publish information, what helped a lot was interest and lobbying by the user community. And that was extremely effective. So again, I’m hoping that the user community, especially the low- librarian segment of the industry, will see this as such a backward way of thinking and to stop it happening by the pressure that they can apply, whether through the service providers or the official bodies in their countries.
[00:26:47] Greg Lambert: So one of the interesting things that I found out is that apparently in each of the jurisdictions that you’re in, you have an open or free VLEX system in that jurisdiction. What made you decide to do that, and what’s the benefit that you’re getting from having an open version?
[00:27:10] Juan Faus: Yeah, I mean, we don’t do that everywhere, but we do that in more than 20 jurisdictions. So a lot of them, including the U.S. and Canada. We are a premium provider. So the kind of customers that we usually have are big law firms, corporate law, government institutions. So we try to provide a very premium service with content from many jurisdictions, primary law, books, journals, analytics, everything in one place. That’s where we think that value should be. As I was mentioning before, we support free law. So the best way of supporting free law is actually providing free access to it. And we are able to do that because we invest in creating something that’s really different and unique compared to the free solution. So we embrace this philosophy almost everywhere where we operate. That is obviously, as a benefit of that, you have people who discover the solution. Maybe a lot of them, that’s good enough. And you have hundreds of thousands of users who use your solution everywhere. But if they need more sophisticated features or secondary materials, etc. Then they eventually upgrade to a paid version. So it’s both vision and philosophy of how things should be.
[00:28:48] Marlene Gebauer: So your product allows for native language searching, which I think is pretty unique. I understand that it translates the query across languages as well as translates the results. I’m curious about, again, how usual is that, but also how is the accuracy on that?
[00:29:07] Juan Faus: What we always say is it’s something to help you, especially identify a piece of legislation or case law or a particular article in a journal, etc. So you shouldn’t make decisions based on this translation. But there is a benefit on that. So I don’t speak German, but if you have an interest on finding what provisions are regarding the sales tax. For example, in Germany, I can find the legislation and the article, and then I can ask for a human translation. So what we always say is it helps a lot to do comparative research. In some contexts, it’s good enough to have a general understanding. In others, you should ask for a human translation.
[00:29:56] Ali Gerami: Not deciding on that because it’s… It’s machine translation, but it’s super useful.
[00:30:03] Juan Faus: It’s super useful.
[00:30:04] Ali Gerami: Can I add something to that? Not necessarily related to translation, but also in terms of making sure that the responsibility does not end with the service that you access. For example, in the common law system, you need to see what is relevant, and that’s what we show the practitioner. That this case has cited your case in a negative way, so you have to be careful. Don’t rely on the label that we put on this relationship. We show you the citing paragraph, you read it, you decide. Therefore, what’s important is to give the answers as quickly as possible in the right context, but leave the final decision to the practitioners and attorneys.
[00:30:47] Marlene Gebauer: I was gonna say, it almost sounds like it works like search in context. Like you get the gist of it, and then you have to do the analysis yourself, or you have to get a more official translation to make sure that everything is correct.
[00:30:51] Juan Faus: You get the gist of it, and then you have to do the analysis yourself, or you have to get a more official translation to make sure that everything is correct. I may add one more thing. You can search in English and we do the translation to 10 languages at the same time. But if you speak one of the languages, you could modify one of the translations that we do and then we provide you the full translation or the parallel translation with two columns. So yes, for the search results and for the pages as well. So in some context, it may be that you have, you can understand something, because maybe the language is similar, let’s say, for example, Spanish and Portuguese, but you want both. So it’s useful as well, this feature, let’s say.
[00:31:46] Greg Lambert: All right, but before I let you go, I want to ask you, so we’re in Washington, D.C. I know, Masoud, you’ve been to AALL a few times. Luis, have you been to AALL before? Good, yes. And so, what’s the benefit that you get, and what do law librarians provide in ways of assistance, guidance, help? What’s the benefit that you get by being here?
[00:32:15] Ali Gerami: Well, clearly, as a commercial organization, we come here to find clients. But at the same time, we hear a lot of feedback about our existing products and potential products. What are the gaps? And that helps us enormously at this conference and many of the other conferences. The other benefit is to talk to other players in the market. Because very often, you find that you can help to offer a solution to the industry. But by working with another player and maybe two, three other companies, what you can create is 10 times better. And it’s important to see these individuals, these companies, face to face, talk to them, go have a beer with them, and find solutions, products, services, which can be good for not just the service providers, but everyone in the industry.
[00:33:04] Marlene Gebauer: these companies face-to-face, talk to them, go have a beer with them, and find solutions, products, services, which can be good for not just the service providers, but everyone in the industry.
[00:33:19] Ali Gerami: And that has been extremely helpful.
[00:33:23] Greg Lambert: Well, I don’t know if I’ve helped, but I have drank a few beers with Masoud.
[00:33:28] Marlene Gebauer: I was gonna say, this is another example of none of us is as smart as all of us, right? It’s like the feedback is very useful.
[00:33:36] Greg Lambert: Well, Masoud and Luis, thank you very much for joining us today, and thanks for coming out to Washington, D.C. for AALL. It’s been a pleasure having you on.
[00:33:44] Ali Gerami: Thank you, thank you for having us. Thank you for the opportunity.
[00:33:53] Greg Lambert: Marlene, one of the biggest takeaways from this interview is that both Masoud and Luis have great voices for podcasting.
[00:34:01] Marlene Gebauer: I’m a little bit jealous.
[00:34:03] Greg Lambert: I know.
[00:34:03] Marlene Gebauer: I’m a little bit jealous, I’ll admit it.
[00:34:05] Greg Lambert: I was thinking that if one of us should happen to get sick and not be able to do the podcast, maybe we could reach out and get one of them to sit in for us.
[00:34:14] Marlene Gebauer: If they pretend they’re us, that would be a great idea. For real, one of the biggest takeaways I found from the interview is the ability there is to search in different languages and deliver in different languages. So you could basically go to one language and do the search and then deliver it in another language. And what a wonderful ability to have in terms of being able to get information to a variety of different people. That was great.
[00:34:42] Greg Lambert: Yeah, and I like the way that they said that you could manipulate it from one language to the other because you could actually see the search structure. that you could manipulate it from one language to the other because you could actually see the search structure. Very interesting. we tend to think of the world as mimicking everything we do here in the U.S., but obviously that’s just not true. And the work that Velux does, especially now that they’ve merged with Justice, is pretty amazing and I imagine probably at times pretty frustrating. I was thinking that, this is a large-scale version of my daily job when I’m trying to track down information just from the 254 counties here in Texas. But it would be like if all of those counties spoke different languages.
[00:35:26] Marlene Gebauer: And weren’t online.
[00:35:29] Greg Lambert: And weren’t online. And I had to find that one person that had the information.
[00:35:33] Marlene Gebauer: Right.
[00:35:34] Greg Lambert: So it definitely takes a lot of discipline to work across all these different countries and create a transparency effect. from some of the places, even if those places don’t necessarily want to be all that transparent. So, and even some places that claim to be transparent, but maybe not. I’m talking to you, France. I feel like we’ve traveled the world this week with our guest. I’d really like to thank Masoud Jarami and Luis Faust from VLX for sitting down with us while we were in D.C. and discussing the ins and outs of collecting, indexing, and presenting foreign law materials on their platform. I’d also like to thank Tara Taubman-Bassillon from Data Rainbow for letting me pick her brain on the civil law structure of France. So thanks, Tara.
[00:36:31] Marlene Gebauer: So everyone do us a favor and subscribe to the Geek & Review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments or suggestions, you can reach us on Twitter at @GabeBauerM or @Glambert, or you can call the Geek & Review hotline at 713-487-7270. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeSicca.
[00:36:56] Greg Lambert: Yeah, so listen to the end of the episode. Thanks, Jerry.
[00:36:59] Marlene Gebauer: Please.
[00:37:00] Speaker G: Thank you, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later.
[00:37:04] Marlene Gebauer: Bye-bye.
[00:37:05] Speaker G: Don’t have to go too far. Salt of the earth on the way to a hearse. At the devil’s backbone bar. Built of stones and held up by trunks. Don’t take credit cards. Hipsters or yuppies, those without regrets. At the devil’s backbone bar. Catered outside the town of Port-au-Prince. Careful where you drive your car. Swindling cliffs and professional drugs. At the devil’s backbone bar. Hey, hey, don’t take me away. I can walk home by the North Star. But I fail to notice that it’s still daylight. Outside the devil’s backbone bar. Jukebox hits, full of gents. No one listens to NPR. They got haggard and cold. But they’ll enjoy at the devil’s backbone bar. Don’t serve it in a lonely beer But you can bring your own mace and jar You can share it for free But charge for ice at the devil’s backbone bar You know me, I like to have a good time Breathe about it in my memoir Watch me double fisting on a Tuesday night At the devil’s backbone bar Hey, hey, don’t take me away I can walk home by the North Star But I fail to notice that it’s still daylight Outside the devil’s backbone bar Hey, hey, don’t take me away I can walk home by the North Star But I fail to notice that it’s still daylight Outside the devil’s backbone bar At the devil’s backbone bar At the devil’s backbone bar At the devil’s backbone bar