About the Open Legal Systems Project

Open-source tools for legal aid operations.

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide free, open-source, high-quality solutions for legal problems, whether broad or highly specific, created by and for the public-interest community.

• Free and open source: Every project is intended to be transparent, reusable, and adaptable by legal-aid practitioners and civic technologists.
• Quality solutions: We prioritize reliability and usability so tools are practical in real legal workflows, not just prototypes.
• Made by anyone: Contributions are welcome from developers, legal workers, researchers, and community members with lived experience.
• Legal aid + systems: We focus on the intersection of direct legal support and systems design, so improvements can scale and serve more people.

Mission statement

Our mission is to build open digital infrastructure that strengthens legal aid systems and improves access to justice through structural efficiency.

What we build

We focus on practical software for intake, case workflow, and client communication that can be adopted by legal organizations with minimal overhead.

Why structural efficiency matters

When legal aid teams spend less time on avoidable operational friction, they can serve more people with higher quality support.

Volunteer philosophy

Our work is volunteer-led and practitioner-informed, combining technical contributions with legal domain expertise.

Transparency commitment

We build in the open, document decisions, and publish source code so organizations can audit, adapt, and improve every project.