About Us We use technology, data, and advocacy to make the legal ecosystem more equitable and competitive. Founded in 2010, Free Law Project operates CourtListener, the RECAP Suite, and Bots.law, serving more than 2 million monthly visitors. Impact metrics include 800+ million downloads served, 250+ million pages of court data, 100+ million API requests served, 5.4+ million emails sent, and 1,000+ government users. Twitter/Bluesky: @freelawproject. ^^ Submitter's Note: This StratML rendition was compiled from the source by Claude.ai and edited in the form at https://stratml.us/forms/Claude/Part1.html Free Law Project FLP uuid-4a1b2c3d-5e6f-7a8b-9c0d-1e2f3a4b5c6d Free Law Project is the leading 501(c)(3) nonprofit using technology, data, and advocacy to make the legal ecosystem more equitable and competitive. Started in 2010, it creates and maintains CourtListener.com, the RECAP Suite, and Bots.law, providing free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials for attorneys, journalists, researchers, and the general public. Michael Lissner Co-Founder and Executive Director. Steers technical development and advocacy efforts and forges partnerships with libraries, legal technology startups, academics, and journalists. Holds a Masters of Information Management and Systems from UC Berkeley School of Information. Paul H. Chapman Award recipient, FastCase 50 Honoree, and recipient of the Public Access to Information Award from the American Association of Law Librarians. Brian Carver Co-Founder and Board Member. Advised Michael Lissner on the creation of CourtListener at UC Berkeley School of Information in 2009-2010. Subsequently advised students on a legal citator and collaborated with UC Santa Cruz computer scientists on CourtListener search enhancements. Continues to support all of Free Law Project's efforts as a member of its Board of Directors. Ansel Halliburton Board Member. Involved in legal technology since 2006, including foundational work on a comprehensive federal intellectual property litigation database that later became Lex Machina. Practiced technology law before co-founding Syntexys, a document analytics software company spun out from A3 by Airbus. Holds degrees from UC Berkeley and UC Davis School of Law. Rebecca Fordon Board Member. Law Librarian and Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Former corporate bankruptcy attorney at an AmLaw 200 firm and longtime Free Law Project volunteer. Research interests include electronic court records, legal citators, and open access to legal information. 2024 vLex Fastcase 50 honoree. Michelle Ma Board Member. Attorney and startup founder passionate about building legal technology for self-advocacy. Brings a decade of legal experience counseling technology companies on contracts, technology licensing, product and IP issues, and M&A. Former mechanical engineer and executive and founder of several early-stage startups. Jenifer Whiston Director of Philanthropy. Brings over a decade of fundraising, grant writing, and relationship-building experience, including prior work with the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York and YWCA Greater Capital Region. Holds a bachelor's degree from Siena College and a master's from Long Island University Brooklyn. William E. Palin Lead for Case Law. Attorney and software developer focused on technology's role in bridging the Access-to-Justice gap. Previously served as the Access to Justice/Technology Fellow at Harvard Law School, as Adjunct Professor of Law and Technology at Suffolk University in Boston, and as a practicing attorney. Jessica Frank Director of Justice Initiatives. Legal technologist focused on expanding access to justice through innovative software solutions. Holds a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law (2011). Spent 12 years training users at legal aid organizations, courts, and law schools on technology to simplify legal processes and bridge the civil justice gap. Eri O'Diah Technical Partnerships Manager. Technologist and entrepreneur with expertise in product strategy, legal technology, and access to justice innovation. Holds a B.A. from California State University, Northridge, and is pursuing a Master's in Technology Policy at the RAND School of Public Policy. A legal ecosystem that is equitable and competitive, in which free and open access to primary legal materials empowers attorneys, researchers, journalists, and the public to understand, access, and improve the American legal system. uuid-v1a2b3c4-d5e6-f7a8-b9c0-d1e2f3a4b5c6 To use technology, data, and advocacy to make the legal ecosystem more equitable and competitive by curating free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials; developing tools for legal research and innovation; fostering an open ecosystem for legal research; and supporting academic research in the legal sector. uuid-m1a2b3c4-d5e6-f7a8-b9c0-d1e2f3a4b5c6 Openness All tools, data, and code are open source and freely available, providing a common launchpad for innovation across the legal ecosystem so that advances benefit everyone rather than being locked up by any single actor. Equity Legal information and tools should be accessible to everyone — not just those who can afford expensive subscription databases — so that the legal system works fairly for attorneys, the public, and those who lack representation. Permanence Primary legal materials must be preserved and made permanently accessible to the public, ensuring that the legal record endures and remains findable over time rather than disappearing behind paywalls or link rot. Innovation Technology and data can transform the legal ecosystem; Free Law Project develops tools and datasets that enable new approaches to legal research, access, and advocacy and gives them away so others can build on them. Legal Access Curate and provide free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials including court opinions, federal filings, oral arguments, judicial financial disclosures, and judge biographical data, so that anyone can find and use the law. 996b22a3-8a68-458b-968f-868ee819d0e2 1 Attorneys and Legal Professionals Practicing attorneys, paralegals, and legal staff who depend on access to court opinions, filings, and legal records to serve their clients and fulfill their professional obligations. Journalists Reporters and investigative journalists who use court records and legal data to inform the public about the legal system and matters of public interest, including outlets such as the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and ProPublica. General Public Members of the public — including self-represented litigants — who seek to understand their legal rights, follow cases of interest, or access the legal system without professional representation. CourtListener ~ CourtListener.com Archive: The primary vehicle for delivering open access to legal materials, housing an immense, fully searchable collection of orders, opinions, oral arguments, PACER filings, judge biographical records, and judicial financial disclosures from state and federal courts nationwide. See https://www.courtlistener.com/ CourtListener Archive Maintain and grow CourtListener.com as a fully searchable, accessible repository of court opinions, oral arguments, PACER filings, judge records, and judicial financial disclosures from state and federal courts, with the goal of hosting the first open and comprehensive collection of American case law. 6a80ae72-736a-4c13-8958-50053b080c84 1.1 RECAP Archive Operate the RECAP browser extensions and the RECAP Archive to liberate PACER documents purchased by users, making them freely available to anyone in PACER and via CourtListener, growing the archive to include hundreds of millions of docket entries across nearly every federal case. 97b277c2-5891-49e8-b5b0-9a46848cdc99 1.2 Oral Arguments Host the world's largest collection of oral argument audio from state and federal courts, making recordings searchable, streamable, and available as subscribable and customizable podcasts, after courts indicated they could not host the files themselves. 273b0519-bd75-453f-9501-2c29cbd23894 1.3 Legal Technology Develop, maintain, and openly publish technology tools useful for legal research and innovation, including APIs, open-source libraries, alerting systems, and case-tracking bots that serve attorneys, researchers, journalists, legal technology companies, and the general public. f58ce794-f412-4f1a-b1f6-34ae08a0f7a9 2 Legal Technology Startups Early-stage and growth-stage companies building legal research, analytics, and access-to-justice products on top of Free Law Project's open data and APIs, using FLP infrastructure as a launchpad to avoid duplicating foundational data collection work. Software Developers Developers and engineers who use Free Law Project's open-source tools, APIs, and datasets to build new legal applications, research pipelines, and access-to-justice capabilities. Bots.law ~ Case Bots Platform: Provides automated case update notifications via Slack, Discord, MS Teams, Google Chat, Bluesky, and Mastodon through the Big Cases Bot and user-configurable Little Cases Bots, making it easy for attorneys, journalists, and the public to follow important litigation. See https://bots.law/ APIs Provide production-grade REST APIs and full database replication services for opinions, filings, judges, and financial disclosures — having served more than 100 million API requests — enabling organizations large and small including OpenAI and the Smithsonian Institution to build on Free Law Project's legal data infrastructure. 6c1e4f61-b328-4112-be62-48cdac352b59 2.1 Tools Develop and release open-source tools including Eyecite (legal citation extraction from text), X-Ray (identification of bad redactions that could expose client secrets), and additional utilities that researchers and legal technologists can deploy freely to advance legal research and professional responsibility. 1a14fec2-5999-4c19-b974-cf65fe122a0b 2.2 Case Alerts Operate search alerts, docket alerts, and case bots through CourtListener.com and Bots.law that notify attorneys, journalists, and the public about new filings, opinions, and developments in federal court cases, with more than 5.4 million notification emails sent to date. d51796c3-a724-4b9f-a4aa-aa445b147cfc 2.3 Ecosystem Foster and support an open ecosystem for legal research by publishing curated datasets, partnering with libraries and academic institutions, and providing resources that enable startups, librarians, and researchers to innovate on a shared foundation of open legal data rather than rebuilding it independently. 1ec6c983-2871-4e8e-a588-ad5318f17590 3 Law Librarians Legal information professionals at law schools, courts, and bar associations who curate and provide access to legal resources and serve as partners in building and promoting open legal data infrastructure and access-to-justice initiatives. Government Users More than 1,000 government personnel who use CourtListener and related Free Law Project tools to access legal data and court records in the performance of official duties. Datasets ~ Legal Datasets Initiative: Publishes the Case Law Database, RECAP Archive Database, and Judge and Disclosure Database as openly licensed datasets — including financial disclosures, biographical data, school and employment histories, and campaign contributions for thousands of state and federal judges — to eliminate duplicative data cleaning efforts. See https://free.law/datasets/ Legal Datasets Publish and maintain open datasets for American case law, the RECAP Archive, and the Judge and Disclosure Database — including financial disclosures, biographical data, and judicial appointment records for thousands of state and federal judges — making centuries of legal data available in clean, reusable form. 6b93abed-6d69-48a3-8594-461f93447e47 3.1 Startups & Librarians Provide guides, resources, and direct consulting support for legal technology startups and law librarians building on Free Law Project data and tools, and collaborate with the journalism, academic, and nonprofit communities — including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, Harvard, and Georgia State University — to advance the open legal ecosystem. 0e703bdd-4a7f-4866-acc2-72ad3e3e7aa5 3.2 Academic Research Support academic research in the legal sector by providing data, tools, and partnerships that enable scholars at law schools, universities, and research institutions to conduct empirical, doctrinal, and interdisciplinary studies of the American legal system. 49861039-6e1a-4e77-ab55-35216ce4bd74 4 Law Schools and Universities Academic institutions — including Harvard, UC Berkeley, Ohio State University, Georgia State University, EDHEC Business School, and NOACRI — that partner with Free Law Project for data access and collaborative legal research. Partnerships Develop and sustain data-sharing and research partnerships with law schools, universities, and research institutions to facilitate empirical legal studies, including ongoing relationships with Harvard Law School, UC Berkeley, Georgia State University, EDHEC Business School, and NOACRI. 46969459-2e4c-497b-a718-2a28631b0b26 4.1 Data Consulting Offer data services and consulting to researchers, journalists, and organizations that need customized access to legal data holdings, supporting investigations and academic studies that would otherwise be impossible without comprehensive court records at scale. 47daf618-2d6f-4023-b921-abc8856f8c55 4.2 Legal Advocacy Use advocacy to improve the American legal system at the policy level, including efforts to make PACER free, bring FOIA-like transparency to the federal judicial branch, support public access to court records, and establish the principle that legal data produced by the public courts belongs to the public. 67a568a8-dd5f-45f8-8225-1261912a9335 5 Policymakers and Legislators Members of Congress, federal judiciary administrators, and executive branch officials with authority to reform PACER, mandate public access to court records, and extend open government data requirements to the judicial branch. Legal Aid Organizations Nonprofits and public interest organizations providing civil legal services to low-income individuals who benefit from free access to court opinions and filings in support of their advocacy and case preparation. Advocacy ~ Legal System Reform Initiatives: Prior successes include putting oral argument audio online, creating a new government database of judicial financial disclosures, and building momentum toward a judicial FOIA. Current efforts include PACER reform legislation and court-by-court campaigns to open legal data. See https://free.law/about/ PACER Reform Advocate for legislation and policy changes to eliminate or substantially reduce PACER fees, making federal court records freely accessible to the public as a matter of right, and building on Free Law Project's established record of PACER research and the RECAP ecosystem. 55fcc84e-cf5e-4507-9f8e-36f449893bcf 5.1 Judicial Transparency Advance research and advocacy toward a FOIA-like law for the federal judicial branch, support court-by-court efforts to open legal data, and build on prior successes including oral argument audio initiatives and the creation of the government database of judicial financial disclosures. 3d61ef2b-9a41-4c0e-971d-71fff70457ef 5.2 2010-01-01 2026-05-18 https://free.law/about/ Owen Ambur Owen.Ambur@verizon.net