[announce] OASIS Expands to Include LegalXML

[Carol Geyer <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Expands to Include LegalXML

Legal Community Moves Standards Development to International Consortium

Washington, D.C., 28 March 2002 -- Standards group, LegalXML, joined the
OASIS interoperability consortium today, in a move that aligns the
development of specifications for legal data exchange with the global
standards community at-large. By migrating its work to OASIS, LegalXML
secures its representation within the consortium known for setting
adoptable worldwide standards for electronic business, Web services and
security. The alliance brings new resources and international awareness
to LegalXML's work on specifications for electronic court filing, court
documents, legal citations, transcripts, criminal justice intelligence
systems, and others.

"This is an important move for LegalXML," said James I. Keane, co-chair
of the eLawyering Task Force of the American Bar Association Law
Practice Management Section. "Operating within OASIS, LegalXML gains
close ties to the major global standards-setting bodies. Existing OASIS
members, representing some of the largest and most innovative companies
in the world, will now be able to actively contribute to the work of
LegalXML."

"OASIS has the experience, the technology and the support environment
that is essential for the successful development of XML standards," said
Don Bergeron, chair of the LegalXML Steering Committee. "Being in the
mainstream of OASIS, LegalXML participants take advantage of a
tried-and-true technical process and track record of successful
adoption. OASIS provides the infrastructure we need, so we can focus all
our energies on developing standardized structures, vocabularies and
data exchange tools for the legal community."

Under the new organizational structure, members of LegalXML will join
OASIS and be eligible to contribute to all OASIS technical work.
Existing OASIS members will have the option to participate in LegalXML
without additional membership dues.

"In today's economy, it's not practical to expect companies to join a
multitude of consortia in order to participate in all the relevant
standards development being done. OASIS is one organization with many
opportunities for involvement," explained Patrick Gannon, OASIS
president and CEO. "LegalXML expands the breadth of our technical agenda
in an exciting way. We welcome LegalXML participants to our community of
developers and look forward to sharing new approaches, methods, and
insights with one another."

Members of the LegalXML Steering Committee within OASIS include Donald
Bergeron of Lexis-Nexis, Toby Brown of the Utah State Bar, Rolly
Chambers of Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP, John Greacen, Esq. of Grecean
Associates, Daniel Greenwood, Esq. of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Jim Keane, Esq. of JKeane.Pro, Eddie O'Brien of Ringtail
Solutions, and Dave Roberts of the SEARCH National Consortium for
Justice Information and Statistics.

OASIS will host open mail lists for public comment on LegalXML technical
committees, and completed work will be freely available to the public
without licensing or other fees.  The LegalXML website
(www.legalxml.org) will continue to be maintained by OASIS.

LegalXML was founded in November 1998 as a non-profit organization to
bring legal and technical experts together to create standards for the
electronic exchange of legal data. The OASIS LegalXML Member Section
will continue this work to serve as an open forum for the legal domain
to share ideas and experiences associated with XML and related core
standards. LegalXML participants include lawyers, developers,
application vendors, government agencies and members of academia.

About OASIS
OASIS (www.oasis-open.org), a not-for-profit, global consortium, drives
the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.
Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight,
open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite
disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, Web services,
security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and
other interoperability specifications development.

OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100
countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor
ebXML, a global framework for e-business data exchange. OASIS operates
XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas,
vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an
online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards.


For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209