This Linux Lawyering Project

I’m a lawyer, licensed in Maine and Utah. My practice is a mix of some administrative law, some litigation, and a lot of deep research and writing.

For some time I’ve been thinking about transitioning the tech/software aspect of my practice away from a paid/SAAS model towards open source. There are a number of reasons for this, among them that I’ve been interested in open source projects since the 90s. I’m so old I remember checking out freeware and shareware floppy discs from the library.

Also, the cost of providing legal services is incredibly high, which in turn is partially to blame for legal fees being incredibly high, and tinkering with hardware and software interest me anyway. And I really dislike most Microsoft products, particularly Windows and Word (more on why later).

I started making moves earlier this year and I’ve decided to blog about my progress and process here on linuxlawyering.com. My initial reaction is that a fully opensource tech stack isn’t quite ready for prime time in the legal practice environment. I hope I can prove myself wrong!