How It Works

Most legal technology coverage stops at the product announcement. These posts go deeper -- into the open-source projects, data pipelines, API architectures, and technical infrastructure that actually make modern legal technology function. From Free Law Project building the open-source alternative to PACER, to the document processing systems that handle millions of pages at scale, this is where we examine how the tools work under the hood and why the engineering decisions matter for the lawyers and clients who depend on them. Expect walk-throughs of real implementations, honest assessments of what scales and what breaks, and the kind of technical specificity that vendor white papers deliberately leave out.

APR 02, 202615 min readhow-it-works

The People vs. PACER: How Free Law Project Is Building the Open-Source Infrastructure to Make Court Records Free

PACER charges ten cents a page for public court records and generates $150 million per year in fees. A $125 million class-action settlement for overcharging remains unpaid after appeal. Meanwhile, Free Law Project has spent fifteen years building the open-source alternative -- CourtListener, RECAP, an AI citator, and a new Litigant Portal launching this fall.

Abstract visualization of open data networks and document flows representing the liberation of public court records through open-source technology

APR 02, 202615 min read

how-it-works