Free Law Project provides access to legal materials and research for public
By Somin Park
The Free Law Project, a new California nonprofit, launched Tuesday and will provide free and easy access to legal material and research for anyone to download.
The nonprofit seeks to organize and distribute U.S. court opinions to the public. Although all court documents and legal opinions are free of copyright restrictions and technically in the public domain, they are currently difficult to find and access without paying a substantial fee — an issue the Free Law Project aims to resolve.
The organization was founded by School of Information assistant professor Brian Carver and UC Berkeley alumnus Michael Lissner. It will act as an umbrella organization for a number of technologies, including CourtListener, which alerts its users about new legal cases of interest that are posted on different court websites each day....