Open Law
Open Law, an initiative of Sydney-based not-for-profit BarNetwork Pty Limited, operates JADE, Australia's leading legal research platform, providing searchable access to over 613,000 court decisions and 176,000 statutes for barristers, law firms, government, and legal scholars.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2000
- HeadquartersSydney, Australia
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Open Law does
Open Law is an initiative of BarNetwork Pty Limited, a not-for-profit Australian corporation founded in 2000 and headquartered at Level 22, 52 Martin Place in Sydney. It operates JADE (Judgments & Decisions Enhanced), Australia's leading online legal research platform, providing open access to more than 613,000 court and tribunal decisions and 176,000 statutes across all Australian jurisdictions through a proprietary knowledge graph that updates in real time. Around this core platform, the company runs a portfolio of legal publishing and content brands, including the Victorian Reports (an Authorised Reports series dating to 1875, published through subsidiary Little William Bourke), Pinpoint Press, The Ledger daily/weekly legal intelligence, the Ruminants long-form podcast, JADE.world content aggregator, and the Lawstream iOS app.
The product architecture combines a freemium base layer with paid JADE Professional subscriptions ($65-$995/year for individuals, with small-firm and barrister reader tiers), Victorian Reports subscriptions ($45/month or $275/year), and custom enterprise agreements for law firms, government departments, and barristers' chambers, supplemented by bespoke legal publishing services. Premium features include JADE Clips for paragraph- and section-level citations, legislation and citation visualisations, Similarity Tool, Precedent Tracker, Parallel Citations, document upload with automated citation checking, and Jasmine, a machine-learning assisted natural language research interface. Distribution is hybrid: self-service PLG via jade.io paired with enterprise field sales, supported by fortnightly training events, a continuous webinar series, and channel partnerships with the High Court of Australia, the Judicial College of Victoria, the NSW Bar Association, and the Council of Law Reporting in NSW.
Open Law firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Open Law
- Legal name
- BarNetwork Pty Limited
- Website
- https://openlaw.com.au
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2000
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Open Law, an initiative of Sydney-based not-for-profit BarNetwork Pty Limited, operates JADE, Australia's leading legal research platform, providing searchable access to over 613,000 court decisions and 176,000 statutes for barristers, law firms, government, and legal scholars.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Open Law industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Legal Research Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), All Other Legal Services (541199)
- SIC
- Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Legal Practice Management & Case Management (BPAEAPAC)
Keywords
Where Open Law is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Sydney
- HQ country
- Australia
- HQ region
- Oceania
Offices1 record
Markets served
Open Law business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- JADE Professional Subscriptions: Premium subscription tier providing advanced legal research tools including JADE Clips for legislation, visualisations, document uploads, and enhanced alerts. Tiered pricing with monthly and annual options.
- Victorian Reports Subscriptions: Digital access to the Victorian Reports dating back to 1875, with monthly and annual subscription options plus bound print volumes
- Enterprise Solutions: Customised enterprise agreements for law firms, legal departments, and government organisations including full JADE Professional access, Victorian Reports, and bespoke digital publishing solutions
- Publishing Solutions: Bespoke legal publishing solutions leveraging JADE platform and knowledge graph for legal professionals and organisations
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free tier with basic legal research tools |
| Subscription | Monthly | Premium professional tier with advanced research tools |
| Subscription | Monthly | Victorian Reports digital access |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise and government solutions |
| Subscription | Monthly | Small firm and sole practitioner pricing |
| Subscription | Monthly | JADE Professional for Barristers Readers |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Open Law product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Open Law operates JADE (Judgments & Decisions Enhanced), an online legal research platform providing open access to Australian case law, legislation, and professional research tools. Built around a proprietary knowledge graph of Australian case law, legislation, and citations, the platform delivers real-time updates, paragraph-level citation tools (JADE Clips), visualisation tools (Similarity, Precedent Tracker, Parallel Citations), and AI-assisted natural language search (Jasmine). The company also publishes the Victorian Reports through subsidiary Little William Bourke, the Pinpoint Press imprint, The Ledger, and bespoke digital publishing solutions for legal organisations.
Product overview
Open Law is an initiative of BarNet (BarNetwork Pty Limited) providing a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on JADE, Australia's leading legal research platform. The core offering combines JADE (case law and legislation search) with JADE Professional (advanced subscription tier), Victorian Reports, and Pinpoint Press publishing imprint. The ecosystem includes The Ledger (daily/weekly legal intelligence), One to 100 (open access Commonwealth Law Reports), Ruminants podcast, and JADE.world content aggregator. JADE Professional subscribers access professional tools including JADE Clips, Legislation Visualizations, Similarity Tool, Precedent Tracker, Parallel Citations, Focus Matches, Document Uploads, and Citation Checking. The platform also features AI-powered research through Jasmine (machine-learning assisted natural language search). Bespoke publishing solutions are available for legal organizations seeking to leverage JADE's knowledge graph and publishing technologies.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- JADE: Leading legal research platform for Australian case law, legislation, and research tools.
- Victorian Reports
- Pinpoint Press
- The Ledger
- Ruminants
- Lawstream
- JADE.world
- One to 100
Products and services
- JADE (Judgments & Decisions Enhanced) Online legal research platform providing access to over 613,000 legal decisions and 176,000 statutes across Australian jurisdictions, with real-time updates as judgments are handed down. Built for Australian legal professionals including barristers, solicitors, law firms, and government legal departments.
- Victorian Reports Authorised Law Reports of the Supreme Court of Victoria, providing digital and print access to over 18,000 reports dating back to 1875. Published through subsidiary Little William Bourke.
- Pinpoint Press Legal publishing imprint producing curated editions of court decisions and educational materials for practitioners, scholars, and students, with direct access to cases via JADE.
- The Ledger A curated, professionally typeset account of Australian court decisions published by PinPoint Press. Available in three editions: Petal (daily), Clover (weekly), and Ledger archive (searchable permanent record).
- One to 100 Crowdsourced initiative to digitise the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLRs), making the first 100 volumes freely accessible through JADE.
- JADE.world Content aggregator linking secondary materials such as blogs and social media posts to primary legal material like case law and legislation.
- Lawstream iOS application for working with authorised law reports and secondary law, providing mobile access to legal content.
- Open Law Publishing Solutions Bespoke digital legal publishing solutions leveraging the JADE knowledge graph and publishing technologies for law firms, government legal departments, and legal organisations seeking customised publishing infrastructure.
Quantifiable outcome
- Over 613,000 legal decisions and 176,000 statutes accessible
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Open Law
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles5 records
Open Law technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability2 records
Feature10 records
Open Law partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.
- Judicial College of VictoriacorePartnership to power the Victorian Sentencing Manual (VSM) with the JADE Platform, providing in-text links to case law and legislation, enhanced search and overview features.
- New South Wales Bar AssociationcoreCollaboration to create the 'Find a Barrister' online service allowing people to find barristers based on practice area, experience, and languages.
- Council of Law Reporting in NSWmajorPartnership regarding NSWLR Online - providing enhanced access to NSW Law Reports through the JADE platform.
- High Court of AustraliamajorPartnership to provide eresources site for the High Court of Australia, integrating Australian High Court materials into the JADE platform.
- UTS (University of Technology Sydney)minorCollaboration with UTS on legal research and training initiatives, including joint conference 'Pathways to Justice for Survivors of Institutional Child Abuse'.
- Little William BourkecoreSubsidiary of BarNetwork that publishes Victorian Reports in both print and digital editions, providing 145 years of Victorian jurisprudence.
Scale indicators6 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Open Law competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- LawVu: LawVu is a New Zealand-founded legal practice management and matter management SaaS. While more workflow-focused than JADE, it serves the same ANZ legal-tech buyer and pressures overlap in legal department contracts.
- vLex: vLex is an AI-first global legal research platform that has expanded into Australia. It is an emerging competitive threat to JADE on AI-driven legal research while also illustrating a possible global-growth trajectory Open Law could emulate.
Broad incumbents
- LexisNexis Australia: LexisNexis provides a major subscription-based Australian legal research service (Lexis+ / Lexis Advance). It competes head-on with JADE for law firm and government subscriptions while sitting inside a much larger global legal data business.
- Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters): Westlaw is one of the largest legal research platforms globally and offers an Australian edition. It is a primary incumbent competitor to JADE for law firm and government research budgets, especially via enterprise bundles.
- CCH Australia (Wolters Kluwer): Wolters Kluwer's CCH division publishes authoritative Australian tax, accounting, and law content and competes with Open Law in the regulated-information segment, including legal and compliance publishing for professionals.
- Bloomberg Law: Bloomberg Law is a comprehensive US-centric legal research and workflow platform. While primarily US-focused, it represents the broad incumbent playbook (research + workflow + AI) that JADE Professional partially overlaps.
Direct peers
- CanLII: CanLII is a Canadian not-for-profit legal information institute providing open access to Canadian case law and legislation. It mirrors Open Law's not-for-profit, open-access model and is among the closest structural analogues.
- BAILII: BAILII is a UK/Irish non-profit legal information institute providing free access to case law and legislation. It is closely comparable to Open Law in mission (non-profit, open access, legal informatics) but serves the British/Common-law market rather than Australia.
- HeinOnline: HeinOnline is a large legal database publisher known for law journal and historical law-report archives. It competes with Open Law's Victorian Reports archive and Pinpoint Press publishing arm in long-form legal content distribution.
- AustLII: AustLII is Australia's leading open-access legal informatics institute. It is the closest direct peer to Open Law/JADE, sharing the same Australian not-for-profit, open-access legal research orientation and even linking into JADE content.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Open Law social profiles
Digital presenceOpen Law financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Open Law leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Open Law subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Open Law funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Open Law M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Open Law
What does Open Law do?
Open Law operates JADE (Judgments & Decisions Enhanced), an online legal research platform providing open access to Australian case law, legislation, and professional research tools. Built around a proprietary knowledge graph of Australian case law, legislation, and citations, the platform delivers real-time updates, paragraph-level citation tools (JADE Clips), visualisation tools (Similarity, Precedent Tracker, Parallel Citations), and AI-assisted natural language search (Jasmine). The company also publishes the Victorian Reports through subsidiary Little William Bourke, the Pinpoint Press imprint, The Ledger, and bespoke digital publishing solutions for legal organisations.
Is Open Law a public or private company?
Open Law is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Open Law founded?
Open Law was founded in 2000. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Open Law based?
Open Law is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, in the Oceania region.
How does Open Law make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. JADE Professional Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are victorian Reports Subscriptions, enterprise Solutions and publishing Solutions.
Who are Open Law's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are LawVu and vLex. Broad incumbents are LexisNexis Australia, Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters), CCH Australia (Wolters Kluwer) and Bloomberg Law. Direct peers are CanLII, BAILII, HeinOnline and AustLII.
Does Open Law have an API?
No public API is recorded for Open Law.
What industry is Open Law in?
Open Law's product category is Legal Research Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAEAPAC, Legal Practice Management & Case Management. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 2731.