By Jason Wilson
A couple of weeks ago, we received Michael R. Overly‘s Electronic Evidence in California (2010-11). I believe we paid full retail of $198.00 for the print copy. It’s a fairly nice product. Perfect bound, with a scored binding to help it lie flat, with roughly 280 pages of commentary and 300 pages of appendices. There’s quite a bit of useful information in the book. But there was one thing that really bothered me about it, you know, maybe something that a smaller publisher wouldn’t have (or couldn’t have) overlooked before publication?
I’m talking about the dozens of citations to the California Civil Discovery Act of 1986*, which was renumbered in 2005, and the fact that the text relegates the highly important 2009 Electronic Discovery Act to a single 4-page section at the end of the commentaries. And these are just the things I saw immediately. All of which are no big deal if you don’t care about accuracy, currency, and, well, understanding.
After reading the briefs and deposition excerpts in the Rudovsky v. West Publishing matter, I had this sinking feeling that editorial standards—you know, the unwritten code that law book publishers seeking to produce really good books adhere to—were slipping. Or should I say, plummeting? Overly’s simply reaffirms my opinion.
Now, I admit that I don’t have any direct knowledge of the publishing arrangement between Mr. Overly and West (a Thomson Reuters business), but his name is on the product and he did write the preface (dated August 2010), so it’s difficult to say who is ultimately responsible (legally) for the editorial quality. Perhaps it is Mr. Overly or the editors at West. I don’t care. I never would have published this book (without substantial rewrites, of course) because I have too much respect for my fellow bar members. And I certainly wouldn’t have charged $200 for the privilege of reading it.
In the end, you—lawyer, law librarian, law student, legal researcher—are going to have to decide whether editorial standards matter. At some point, you’re going to have to realize that in legal publishing the name and the imprint are a “team.” (There are still a number of good teams out there as well.) And if it isn’t clear, your vote is cast every time you write a check. So before you do, please stop and ask this question:
Does the publisher care about me as much as I do about my client?
I know I do. And if you don’t believe me, drop me a line.
[Image (CC) by bruckerrlb]
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* I’m not saying that the text in the commentaries is necessarily incorrect, but you would have to use a disposition table and read the statutes yourself to make that determination. This seems, however, to defeat the purpose of a “new” legal book.
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