Open Access Law Archive Platform Launches

The Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, in collaboration with the Center for Open Science (COS), has announced the launch of Law Archive, the only free open access platform for legal scholarship that integrates collaboration tools, data storage, and sharing of legal scholarship.

The open legal scholarship focus of Law Archive aligns with the mission of the Law Library to support and promote global legal scholarship and research. In development since 2023, Law Archive was inspired by the Law Library’s commitment to access to justice initiatives by filling gaps in the availability of free and open legal information outside of proprietary and predatory frameworks. Researchers, scholars, and the general public have a reliable source for access to current and historical legal commentary and analysis found in legal scholarship.

“The importance of free, reliable, and open access to legal scholarship and information is critically important. Yale Law School is invested in pushing forward innovative initiatives like Law Archive that provide equitable access to legal information,” said Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken.

The Open Science Framework (OSF), host platform for Law Archive, supports the entire research life cycle. Researchers and scholars have the ability to upload research plans, preprints, fully published papers, and collected data to Law Archive. Collaboration features also make it possible for researchers from different institutions to work on projects in a central OSF project space, with the ability to integrate tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and GitHub. Law Archive supports and promotes transparent and reproducible research, a requirement of many funding agencies. 

Law Archive is supported by an Advisory Board consisting of law faculty and librarians from six institutions including Yale University, led by Femi Cadmus, Law Librarian & Professor of Law at Yale Law School. It is managed administratively at the Yale Law Library by a steering committee and co-administrators Michael VanderHeidjen, Associate Director, Scholarly & Research Services, and Nor Ortiz, Technology & Research Librarian. 

For additional information, read the Law Archive launch announcement on the Center for Open Science website.