Event Details

"Eighty percent of low income people have trouble obtaining legal representation or otherwise accessing the civil court system to protect their property, family, and livelihood."

(Brennan Center for Justice, New York University Law School)

The need for no-fee access to legal information is greater than ever before, and law librarians are on the front lines of this crisis.

The American Association of Law Libraries is hosting its second hackathon, and hackers from Philadelphia and surrounding areas are invited to join us for a day of civic app creation on July 18! Law librarians know 1) the needs of the people when it comes to legal information, and 2) what data is available. Hackers know how to make this information accessible.

• When: July 18, 7:30 am - 4:30 pm
• Where: Peirce College, Philadelphia, PA
• Check-in/breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m.
• Registered hackers who are present when the hackathon gets underway at 9:00 a.m. will be eligible to participate. 
• A $250 cash prize will be awarded to the creators of the winning entry.
• Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided.

The following datasets are suggested for this project, but if you already have a dataset in mind that is freely available, we would encourage you to bring the dataset's metadata with you.

• AALL's State Online Legal Materials site 
• Data.gov – all different types of data 
• FDsys Bulk Data – Legal information 
• GovTrack.us Data – Legal information 
• U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository – U.S. House of Representatives information 

Entries will be judged on:

• Use of Government Information – 30%
• Federal, State, or Local
• Preference given to legal information
• Innovation – 30%
• Is this a novel and creative project? Does it provide access to previously inaccessible information/solve a problem?
• Will it make an impact in the community?
• User-friendliness – 20%
• Is the product easy to use?
• Intuitive to understand?
• Viability/Functionality – 20%
• Will the product do what it is supposed to?
• Will the product be accessible by the public/target community members?
• Will people actually use the product? Will the target community(ies) find it useful?

Note: Preference will be given to products designed and built primarily at this event. Previous projects that were more than 25% complete before the AALL Hackathon, as determined by the judges, will not be eligible for the prize.

For more information, check out our ChallengePost page and the hackathon website.

Members of AALL must register through the AALL Annual Meeting registration page. Hackers should register through the Eventbrite registration system.

Questions about the hackathon can be sent to hackathon coordinators Jenny Wondracek and Shawn Friend. Please note, we are adding information about the hackathon all the time. If we are missing something, please let us know!

Watch for tweets: #AALLHack #AALL2015 http://twubs.com/AALLHack

Have questions about AALL Hackathon? Contact American Association of Law Libraries