We build open source tools used at Harvard and beyond that preserve and expand access to knowledge.
Learn more about the lab on the LIL website.
Our Projects
-
Perma.cc
Perma.cc helps scholars, journals, courts, and others create permanent records of the web sources they cite.
-
H2O Open Casebook
H2O is a platform for creating, sharing, and remixing open course materials.
-
Caselaw Access Project
The Caselaw Access Project offers free, public access to over 6.5 million decisions published by state and federal courts throughout U.S. history.
Our Team
Read our staff bios on the LIL website.
Christian Smith
Software Engineering Manager
Christian discovered the craft of research when his open source work with cryptography led to academic collaboration and an engineering role at MIT. Years prior he witnessed the impact of technology on law as a student at Berklee College of Music, when dotcom era file-sharing networks disrupted the music industry. At LIL, he aims to empower the engineering team, help invent breakthrough library tools, and improve access to justice.
Research Fellows
- Katy Gero
- Jim Cowie
- Max Neely-Cohen
LIL Blog Posts
-
Libraries and Public Access to Federal Data: Chris Marcum Talks to the Public Data Project
On May 7, 2026, Molly Hardy, Project Lead for the Public Data Project, sat down for an interview with Chris Marcum, Senior Fellow for Data Policy at the Data Foundation and former Senior Statistician at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Please click the video above to listen and watch; the […]
May 14, 2026
-
Launching the Agent Protocols Tech Tree
February 23, 2026
-
Replication of Government Datasets and the Principles of Provenance
As part of our Public Data Project, LIL recently launched Data.gov Archive Search. In this post, we consider the importance of provenance for large, replicated government datasets. This post is the third in a three-part series; the first introduces Data.gov Archive Search and the second explores its architecture. […]
December 10, 2025