Meet the Absolute Heroes Behind CourtListener.com
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
OA1152 - We are pleased to welcome Mike Lissner, the Executive Director and CTO of the Free Law Project to discuss his outstanding work in bringing federal court filings out from behind the PACER paywall, how just a few people with good ideas can fill in the gaps left by government services, and why he hasn’t created an Article III Hot or Not with his vast library of judicial portraits (but how you could).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You must never ever give out or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. |
| 0:07.6 | That is your calling. That is your mission. That is your moral obligation. That is your mandate. |
| 0:13.4 | Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. |
| 0:26.6 | You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. |
| 0:36.6 | I still believe with all my heart, America can't. free and beautiful to make this life a wonderful adventure. |
| 0:44.1 | I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no child is left hungry, |
| 0:47.9 | no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. |
| 0:55.0 | The fight for our country is always worth it. |
| 1:13.0 | Hello and welcome to opening arguments. This is episode 1152. I'm Thomas Smith. Got a really fun, fascinating Monday OA for you today. If you're someone who does any amount of casual legal research, or maybe even serious legal research, you have probably stumbled across and used a lot the website, |
| 1:17.8 | court listener. It's the best. I'm telling you the show would probably not exist without it. |
| 1:23.8 | It's such a great website. It's such a great resource. And it turns out there's a really cool |
| 1:28.1 | story behind it and the folks who bring us this very valuable and very free resource. They're |
| 1:34.3 | called the Free Law Project and Mike Listerner is the executive director. And it's just such a cool |
| 1:40.4 | inspiring story of, you know, not too many people, kind of a handful of people, |
| 1:45.3 | maybe a baker's handful, I don't know, who are able to provide an unbelievable amount of |
| 1:51.6 | legal documents and case law and case history and all this stuff, and thus broaden the access |
| 1:57.8 | that everyone can have to the law. And they're only getting better and better. |
| 2:03.2 | They're only doing more and more. And so Mike's here to tell us a little bit about the history, |
| 2:07.9 | his history, and some of the other projects they're working on. Hey, if you are tired of being |
| 2:12.5 | bummed out, this is a good one to listen to because this is just all upside. It's great people doing great work, |
| 2:18.7 | expanding access to the law to people who need it in so many ways. So we're really excited to |
| 2:24.3 | talk to Mike and get to learn more about it. So that'll be after the usual break. And if you'd |
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