Free Law Project at CALIcon25! Sharing New Ideas for an Open Legal System
Earlier this month, several of us from Free Law Project traveled to Atlanta to present at CALIcon25 — an annual legal education and technology conference hosted by the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI).
Free Law Project staff and a board member presented two sessions at the conference, both centered on the work we’ve been doing this year to modernize court access and improve transparency in the justice system.
Session 1: Open Law: How Open Source Technology, Neutral Citations, and PACER Reform Can Transform Access to Justice
Presented by: Jessica Frank, Project Manager
This session explored three major barriers to public legal access — proprietary citation systems, PACER fees, and closed legal tech platforms — and how reforms in each area could make the legal system more transparent and equitable. Jessica highlighted current advocacy efforts around the bipartisan Open Courts Act, showcased Free Law Project’s open-source tools (RECAP and CourtListener), and previewed our new Litigant Portal, which is being designed to help self-represented litigants manage their court cases.
You can watch Jessica’s session here:
Session 2: From Citations to Citators: How AI is Reshaping Legal Research
Moderated by Jessica Frank, Project Manager, Free Law Project, and presented by Rebecca Fordon, Law Librarian, Moritz Law Library, The Ohio State University, and Free Law Project Board Member; William Palin, Case Law Lead, Free Law Project; and Rachel Gao, AI Developer, Free Law Project
In this panel, Free Law Project team shared their work on a groundbreaking new project: building the first truly open-source legal citator using modern AI tools. Legal citators — which help track how cases are cited, treated, and interpreted — are essential to legal research, but today’s tools are proprietary, expensive, and closed off to innovation.
The team walked through the technical and policy challenges of creating an open citator, including how they’re combining high-quality citation data, large language models (LLMs), and human-in-the-loop evaluation to ensure accuracy and transparency.
Panelists also previewed early results, shared lessons from training and testing AI models, and highlighted how an open-source citator can benefit public interest groups, legal researchers, and access to justice advocates. The project is still in development — and the team invited the community to contribute data and expertise as it evolves.
You can watch the panel here:
Looking Ahead
Both of these CALIcon25 sessions reflected a theme that’s central to Free Law Project’s work this summer: using open data, open-source tools, and thoughtful collaboration to create a more transparent and accessible legal system.
Whether it’s helping self-represented litigants navigate their cases through the new Litigant Portal, making public legal records more accessible through PACER reform and neutral citations, or building the first open-source legal citator to enhance legal research — these projects all aim to lower barriers, increase accountability, and invite innovation in a field that too often remains locked behind paywalls.
As we head into the rest of the summer, we’ll continue this work through new partnerships, community-driven projects, and upcoming conference presentations. Keep an eye on the Free Law Project blog for updates from across the legal tech and open government space.
And as always — if you’d like to get involved, collaborate, or contribute, we’d love to hear from you. Follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, or Bluesky.
Together, we can help build a legal system that serves everyone.
