Harvard Law School’s Caselaw Access Project recently made history by publishing nearly seven million court cases online. This ambitious initiative, spanning over nine years, aimed to digitize the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive collection of court cases. The Caselaw Access Project, also known as CAP, envisioned providing free and consistent online access to all published U.S. court decisions, thereby democratizing legal information.
The release of these cases represents a significant milestone, offering the public access to 360 years of United States caselaw, including both state and federal court decisions dating back to 1658. This comprehensive archive has been made accessible through the collaboration of the Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab and legal research and analytics startup company Ravel Law.
Jack Cushman, the project’s director, emphasized the importance of making caselaw readily available to the public, noting that prior to this initiative, access to critical legal decisions was limited to professionals. With the digitization of these cases, CAP seeks to level the playing field, ensuring that everyone can access and understand the law of the land.
The meticulous process of digitizing the case files involved retrieving 40,000 books from the HLS Library and a repository in Southborough, Massachusetts. The CAP team painstakingly de-bound the books, scanned case files at a remarkable rate, and preserved the physical copies for posterity. The scanned files were then converted into machine-readable documents and uploaded to the Ravel website, equipped with advanced data science and visualization systems.
Looking ahead, CAP aims to enhance the search functionality of the platform to improve user experience and make the vast database more navigable. By fostering collaborations with AI model makers, CAP is poised to bolster its institutional partnerships and further its mission of increasing caselaw accessibility for all.
In conclusion, the digitization of nearly seven million court cases by the Harvard Law School’s Caselaw Access Project marks a significant step towards democratizing legal information and making it more accessible to the public. This groundbreaking initiative underscores the importance of preserving and digitizing cultural and historical documents for the benefit of future generations.
