Last October, I wrote here about the joint initiative between Harvard Law School and Ravel Law to digitize and make available to the public for free Harvard’s entire collection of U.S. case law, which is said to be the most comprehensive collection of American law and cases available anywhere outside the Library of Congress.

Today, Ravel CEO Daniel Lewis announced the completion of the first phase of this project, with the publication of the complete collection of California case law.

Starting today, as part of the Harvard-Ravel digitization project, the comprehensive, authoritative collection of California case law is available online at Ravel. For the first time, anyone can search and read all California court opinions for free, including landmark rulings on every topic, from same-sex marriage (In re Marriage Cases, 2008) to separation of powers (Houston v. Williams, 1859). Each case is accompanied by a high-quality scan of the original book in which it was published, providing an authentic version that can not be found anywhere else but Ravel.

Ravel will be incorporating Harvard’s case law collection into other parts of its platform as well, Lewis said. Data on California state judges will be added to Ravel’s Judge Analytics feature, allowing subscribers to explore analytics showing how these judges make decisions.

(While access to the Harvard cases through Ravel is free, Ravel still charges a subscription for access to its advanced features such as analytics.)

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.