SeventhCircuitOPedia

We've all heard of Wikipedia and her ugly, but infinitely entertaining, step-sister Conservapedia, but let the world wide wisdom now present to you SeventhCircuitOPedia:

"The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is engaged in an interesting experiment in democracy. The court posted its Practitioners Handbook to the web and opened it up for revision by members of the bar, no holds barred. Attorneys are encouraged to make comments, change information, add topics; in short, post whatever they think is important to know about practicing in the 7th Circuit.

'Our proposition is that everyone knows more than any one person,” says Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook. “As a group, the attorneys practicing before our court know more about appellate practice than any single person. With our wiki, we’re drawing on that wisdom.'” story

So, anyone with a valid email address can edit the Seventh Circuit's Practitioner's Handbook that was formerly available as a PDF.

As funny as it would be to change the handbook's scope of review entry to "complete lack of judgment" in substantive appeals and "total fuckup" for procedural ones, there will apparently be a monitoring system to remove web graffiti. I can see the big law firm execs now: "Tell the partner to start writing the brief and get those damn associates to deface any useful information the other side could find in the practitioner's handbook. I loooooooooooveeeeee POWER!" Ok, maybe not that last part, but you have to find something for that big mess of associates to do all summer that won't totally sink your firm...