LII-in-Your-Pocket?

• Author: F. Tim Knight
• Date: January 12, 2015

When I first learned about “LII-in-a-Box,” a new legal information service developed by the African Legal Information Institute, I thought it might provide a stand-alone information system that could operate independent of the internet. I thought it might be something that would alleviate poor and intermittent internet connections that make access to online information difficult in under-served communities and countries. Honestly though, what really came to mind was the LibraryBox Project that Jason Griffey has been championing for a number of years now.

LibraryBox is an “open source wifi file sharing device” that consists of a router, a USB drive and some software to make it work. It’s described on the main project website as a “portable digital file distribution tool based on inexpensive hardware that enables delivery of educational, healthcare, and other vital information to individuals off the grid.” Could it be used to distribute legal information? I don’t see why not.

The “LII-in-a-Box” idea is a project of the AfricanLII and appears as a component of their mandate since the LII was founded in 2010. It’s an idea that does a great job of supporting their primary goal to “promote Free Access to Law and Open Justice in Africa” and it facilitates the development of other Legal Information Institutes in Africa.

As noted in their introduction, “most African countries suffer from shortages of IT skills, fast and accessible links to the Internet core, as well as reliable service providers offering advanced hardware for hosting solutions.” The “LII-in-a-Box” aims to solve this problem by providing a turnkey solution that enables “free law publishing projects, usually small entrepreneurial bootstrapped start-ups, to concentrate their initial efforts and resources on delivering much needed sustainable access to the law.”

The Africa Technology & Information Institute provided funding for this project making it possible for the AfricanLII to,

“… produce a packaged software solution allowing for an easy installation of a localized legal information system. This solution will assist institutions that are not necessarily skilled in the specialized field of legal information systems to deploy and successfully maintain such systems with minimal or...