Free Law Project Wins American Legal Technology Award for AI

Free Law Project has been named the winner in the Artificial Intelligence category at the 2025 American Legal Technology Awards. This honor recognizes our open-source, public-interest work using artificial intelligence to expand access to civil rights litigation.

With support from Arnold Ventures and in partnership with the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, we completed a six‑month exploratory phase to test how AI could responsibly improve access to complex court data. During that time, we tested and validated tools that classify legal documents, summarize dense filings, and enable plain-English search—all using public legal data and open-source infrastructure.

Another project accelerated by this research is our open source citator, which will track how court opinions are treated over time—whether they’re overruled, followed, or distinguished. It’s still in development, and we’re looking for volunteers to help annotate cases and move this project forward.

This work proves that AI can be developed responsibly—using open models, public data, and transparent methods—to support legal research and advocacy. A foundation is now laid to develop tools to make civil rights cases easier to find, understand, and analyze.

I was also pleased to join Patrick Palace on the Legal Talk Network podcast to speak about the award and this project.

Watch the Award Ceremony here, and you can read more about the awards on Tom Martin’s blog, LawDroid Manifesto.

Support Open Legal Technology

Free Law Project is a small nonprofit with a big mission: make the law free and accessible to everyone. If you believe in open legal data, responsible AI, and access to justice, please consider making a donation or joining as a member.

Together, we can build the legal infrastructure that justice deserves.