1. Introduction. The New York State Law Reporting Bureau (LRB), established under Article 14 of the Judiciary Law, edits and publishes all of the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Appellate Division, as well as selected decisions of the lower courts. These decisions are published in the New York Official Reports, which include the New York Reports, the Appellate Division Reports and the Miscellaneous Reports. Additional lower court decisions are published only on line; abstracts of these decisions are published in the Miscellaneous Reports. The LRB operates under the direction of a State Reporter appointed by the Court of Appeals, with Judge Victoria A. Graffeo serving as the Court's liaison with the LRB. This is a report of the LRB's activities in 2006.

   2. Copyright Licenses Approved. Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye approved five-year licenses granting West Publishing Corporation and LexisNexis the right to use the Official Reports headnotes, summaries and other copyrighted material in their proprietary products. Judiciary Law § 438 authorizes the Secretary of State "to grant to any person, firm or corporation, under such terms and conditions as he and the chief judge of the state of New York may determine to be for the best interests of the state, the right to publish the . . . copyrighted matter" from the Official Reports. Both West and LexisNexis ordinarily seek and are granted such licenses.

   3. Style Manual Promoted. Recommendations by legal writing authorities that practitioners use the Official Reports Style Manual were quoted in the new Third Edition of the ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors) Citation Manual (2006). Its Appendix 2 (Local Court Citation Rules) contains an expanded listing of authorities (the CPLR and court rules) requiring citation to the Official Reports. The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (18th ed 2005) also references the Style Manual and the authorities requiring citation to the Official Reports in a new section on Jurisdiction-Specific Citation Rules and Style Guides. The introduction to the new section notes that "[m]any state and federal courts promulgate local citation rules, which take precedence over Bluebook rules in documents submitted to those courts." Elsewhere, the Style Manual's rules for the citation of electronic sources were referenced in Lewis, Technology Today, The "Wikipedia" Issue: Concerns Aplenty About the Reliability of Web Research, NYLJ, April 4, 2006, at 5, col 1).

   4. Print publications. During 2006, the LRB prepared for publication two volumes of the New York Reports, 3d Series; 11 volumes of the Appellate Division Reports, 3d Series; and four volumes of the Miscellaneous Reports, 3d Series, for a total of 17 bound volumes, as planned. Two soft-cover interim volumes of the New York Reports, 3d Series, also were published.

   In addition, 52 weekly advance sheets and six bi-monthly Cumulative Tables and Index pamphlets were issued. These advance sheets contained 13,027 full opinions, memorandum decisions (not counting tabulars), and abstracts of opinions not published in print; 19,008 pages of opinions, memoranda and abstracts; and 12,295 headnotes, allocated as follows:

     Compared to the prior year, the number of opinions, memoranda and abstracts increased 4.8% (mostly attributable to an increase in the number of Appellate Division memorandum decisions and Miscellaneous abstracts); pages increased by 2.9%; and headnotes decreased by 1.9% (attributable to a greater number of brief Appellate Division memorandum decisions not requiring full headnoting).

   5. Electronic products. The LRB further improved its Web site (http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter) in 2006, and usage continued to grow:

• Coverage of the LRB's Official Reports Service was extended back to 1997. When introduced in May 2005, coverage went back to January 1, 2000. The Official Reports Service now provides free public access to court decisions published in the Official Reports from January 1, 1997 through latest Advance Sheet. (The Slip Opinion Service covers decisions not yet published in the Advance Sheets.)

• AnOfficial Reports Service Archive was added. The Archive provides the text of about 100 leading cases of precedential or historical interest decided prior to January 1, 1997, such as Palsgraf v Long Is. R.R. Co. and MacPherson v Buick Motor Co.

  (The Official Reports Service, Slip Opinion Service and Official Reports Service Archive are found at .)

• An Official Case Name and Citation Locator was added. This resource contains the official case name and citation for all decisions published in the Official Reports. The case names have been styled for use in decisions, briefs, law review articles or other documents referencing state court decisions. Find it at http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/lawReporting/SearchCitation.
• A Legal Research Portal was added. It provides links to a large number of federal, state, local and other sources frequently consulted by LRB editors in the opinion-editing process. It is found at http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/research.htm.

     Knowledge of the LRB Web site continued to spread. An article by Gary Spivey on the site's opinion coverage ("Public Access to Court Decisions Expanded") was published in the New York State Bar Journal at 78 NY St BJ 31 (Jan. 2006). Additionally, the site was discussed extensively in William H. Manz's "Legal Research" article in the March/April 2006 issue of the Journal.

     This increased awareness resulted in increased usage. A total of 632,292 separate visitors accessed the Web site in 2006, making 4,692,481 visits and 51,253,144 requests for information. Compared to the prior year, visitors increased by 53%, visits by 107% and requests by 52%.

   6. Selection of lower court opinions. During 2006, a total of 3,497 Appellate Term and trial court opinions were submitted for publication consideration, an increase of 414 or 13% over 2005. This increase can be attributed in part to the fact that the LRB began receiving opinion submissions in April through the Unified Court System's "Decision WordPerfect Upload" interface. This facility on the UCS Intranet is used by trial court judges to submit opinions to the UCS E.Courts system. Now, they are able to submit them to the LRB as well. Also, 628 opinions were solicited for publication under an opinion solicitation program through which the LRB systematically screens all opinions published in legal newspapers or posted on court Web sites to identify opinions that meet the statutory criteria for publication; these opinions are then solicited from the authoring judge.

      Of the opinions submitted, the LRB accepted 553 for publication in the Miscellaneous Reports and 2,628 for on-line publication, for a total of 3,181 acceptances, an increase of 203 or 7% compared to 2005, and an overall acceptance rate of 91%.

      An article on the selection of trial court opinions for publication (Publication of Trial Court Decisions: A Mystery Solved) was published in the March 2006 issue of the New York City Bar's Forty-Fourth Street Notes. The article was based in part on Gary Spivey's November 2005 presentation to the Committee on State Courts of Superior Jurisdiction.

   7. Personnel. The following staff actions were approved by the Court of Appeals:

      Josette Altobelli was promoted to Administrative Secretary.

      Milagros Figueroa was promoted to Law Reporting Aide.

   8. Facilities. A $25 million program to renovate the office building (One Commerce Plaza) housing the LRB was announced. The windows in all LRB offices were replaced in February as part of a building-wide window replacement project. Removal of the deteriorating marble tile facade, to be replaced with a metal tile, began in May.

     Discussions were initiated with the Office of General Services (OGS) in February to explore renewing the LRB lease of office space at One Commerce Plaza. The current lease expires on March 31, 2007. Office of Court Administration facilities planner Edward Rodman and OGS lease agent Philip Seeber visited the LRB in May in connection with the lease renewal.

   9. Equipment. A new Xerox copier was installed at the LRB in May, replacing a copier that was more than five years old and no longer reliable. In December, the LRB took delivery of 10 new computers and flat-panel monitors provided by West Publishing Corporation under the Official Reports publishing contract, which requires the contractor to provide computer equipment for editorial use.

   10. Editorial automation. Computer-assisted editorial procedures were further developed in 2006:

• The LRB's automated citation preverification program, which identifies potential errors in case citations found in court opinions, was expanded to cover citations to the New York Consolidated Laws. Any New York statutory citation in an opinion is identified programmatically and, if a matching entry is not located in our comprehensive database of Consolidated Law provisions, is highlighted in red to alert the responsible editor to the possible error.
• The Official Case Name and Citation Locator database, which contains the official case name and citation for all decisions published in the Official Reports, was incorporated into the automated citation preverification program to ensure that the official case name format is used in all published decisions.

   11. Professional activities. LRB staffers participated in various professional activities:

• Gary Spivey was appointed to Board of Editors of the New York State Bar Association Journal.
• Bill Hooks attended the annual meeting of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the New York State Bar Association at the NYSBA annual meeting in New York City in January.
• Andy Ashe attended the Association of Reporters of Judicial Decisions (ARJD) annual meeting in Kansas City in August.
• Mike Moran received a plaque from the Association of Reporters of Judicial Decisions (ARJD) recognizing his work in developing the ARJD Web site.
• Eric Harrell attended an Office of Court Administration-sponsored Technology Administrators Group Conference in September at the Judicial Institute in White Plains.
• Milagros Figueroa attended the 2006 Capital Region SEFA (State Employees Federated Appeal) Kickoff and Training Session in September at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center. Milagros chaired the drive at the LRB, with Josette Altobelli's assistance.

   12. Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Presentations. The LRB presented three CLE programs in 2006:

• A program on "Preparation of Opinions for Publication in the Official Reports" was presented at the Court of Appeals in January and October. The program is conducted periodically for Judges' new law clerks. Presenters were Gary Spivey, Andy Ashe, Bill Hooks, Amy Schneider, Chilt Latham, Maureen Clements and Kelli Flansburg.

• A CLE program on Attorney Disciplinary Proceedings was presented at the LRB and at the Court of Appeals in February. Gary Spivey, Bill Hooks and Mike Manning presented the program, which was based on a survey on proceedings reported in volumes 1-21 of the Appellate Division Reports, Third Series.

   13. Public Access Practices. The LRB consulted with the Office of Court Administration on the drafting of a memorandum "to remind judges that all written decisions must ensure that the privacy interests of individuals are protected." The memorandum, released by Judge Lippman in February, counsels judges and court staff to "take every precaution to redact personal identifying information in written decisions in [specified] court proceedings in which the protection of the privacy of participants is legally required." It also notes the recommendation of the Chief Judge's Commission on Public Access to Court Records that certain personal identifying information be omitted from the unsealed record in all categories of cases. The memorandum reinforces current LRB policy of consulting with the authoring court on possible redactions of personal identifying information in cases where certain privacy interests may be implicated. Any resulting redactions are made by the court, not by the LRB.

      Following issuance of the memorandum, the LRB initiated a process of post-publication privacy/security screening for all opinions published on line. If questionable content is detected, the LRB notifies the authoring court of its presence and requests a redaction determination. This second level of review supplements the LRB's pre-publication screening process.

      Where parties or others request redaction of personal identifying information in previously-published opinions, the LRB requests a redaction determination from the authoring court and applies any redactions to the on-line opinion.

   14. Visits and Visitors. Among visits to the LRB in 2006:

• Professor Peter W. Martin of the Cornell Law School visited the LRB In March to discuss the publication of official reports. Professor Martin is co-founder of Cornell's Legal Information Institute, which maintains a popular legal information Web site.
• Judge Victoria A. Graffeo and Clerk of the Court Stuart M. Cohen visited the LRB in December. New Web site features were demonstrated and discussed.

      Among visits made by LRB staff members:

• Mike Moran and John Lesniak visited Rensselaer Technology Park in February to meet with Office of Court Administration Principal Information Technology Analyst Joe Gervais and his team of software engineers to discuss joint development of enhancements to the LRB Web site.

• Gary Spivey and Andy Ashe visited Judge Eugene F. Pigott , Jr. and his staff at Court of Appeals Hall in October to discuss interactions between chambers and the LRB.
• Gary Spivey gave a program on "Publication of Trial Court Opinions in New York" at a meeting of the judges of the Civil Court of the City of New York in Kerhonkson in October.