A Faster, Smarter, Unified Case Law Experience

The Case Law Redesign

We’re excited to announce a major redesign of CourtListener’s case law pages, ushering in a modern, seamless reading experience that puts everything you need on a single page.

Say goodbye to clicking through tabs or choosing the “right” opinion. Now, each opinion view is unified, continuous, and built for deep research.

One Seamless Opinion, Start to Finish

Our interface seprated out the decisions in a case, making it difficult to read them in one go. No more: In the new design we have a clean, single-page design that presents every part of a case—from metadata and summaries to concurrences and dissents—in one uninterrupted flow.

Looking for something specific? Use the new, table of contents to jump directly to any section, including dissents and concurrences.

Smarter Navigation, Cleaner Reading

• Clickable Footnotes & Page Numbers in the Margins

  Footnotes are now clearly organized and instantly accessible. Page numbers appear in the margin and can be clicked or shared—making it easy to pick up right where you left off or cite a specific passage.

• Linked Pin Cites Across Opinions

  Citations are automatically linked within and between cases, making cross-referencing effortless.

• Modern Layout & Typography

  Our refreshed design uses clear, readable fonts and thoughtful spacing to reduce fatigue and help you focus on the law.

A Vast Digital Archive—Now Fully Searchable

As part of this release, we’re proud to include over five million scanned PDFs from the Case Law Access Project directly in the PDF tab for each case. (Note: Copyrighted headnotes remain redacted.)

These scanned opinions offer a richer historical record and allow for comparison between the original printed versions and our digital transcriptions.

New Research Tools at Your Fingertips

To help you get more out of each opinion, we’ve added new research-focused tabs right at the top of the page:

• Table of Authorities

  A snapshot of all cited cases—perfect for fast, focused research.

• Summaries (Parentheticals)

  Judge-written summaries that distill the reasoning behind cited cases, grouped by theme or issue.

• Cited By

  See which opinions have referenced this case over time.

• Related & Similar Cases

  Explore decisions with comparable legal questions or fact patterns.

Together, these tools bring you deeper insight and tighter context, right where you need it—inside the opinion itself.

Built for Speed

This update isn’t just about aesthetics. Under the hood, we’ve reworked large parts of our platform to significantly boost performance. Case pages now load faster and handle complex opinions more smoothly—so you can stay focused on your research, not your browser.

Acknowledgments

Huge thanks to Jack Cushman, and the team at the Legal Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School for his support in making the full archive of scanned PDFs available. His work has been instrumental in expanding access to this critical legal history.

Try the New Experience

Check out the new opinion interface today on CourtListener. With integrated metadata, smarter navigation, and millions of scanned PDFs at your fingertips, we hope this redesign will make your research faster, deeper, and more intuitive than ever.

Got feedback? We’d love to hear it. Reach out on GitHub or email us at info@free.law.

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