Assemble the Big Stuff and Occupy the Process: "Using Technology to Improve the Law and Using the Law to Improve Technology” – A Homage to the BLIP* Clinic Hackathon

Occupy Wall Street and the expanding global impact of social networking technologies have reminded us that we all have a right to participate actively in the process of making laws and in controlling the impact these laws have on us. This session will report on the ground-breaking work that BLIP clinicians are doing, using the well-known coder-hackathon model to assemble people and groups via social networking tools to bring together law schools, their faculty, students and staff in a more inclusive legislative process.

* Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic, founded by Professor Jonathan Askin, functions as a modern, technology-oriented law firm. In its first annual Legal Hackathon, faculty, students, librarians and technology professionals collaborated to engage lawyers, advocates, and technologists in creating laws with greater citizen involvement.