Court Listener
Case Studies
Court Listener
A modern interface redesign for America's open legal research platform
Custom software
Assignment
CourtListener, operated by the Free Law Project, approached Magnet to modernize their legal research platform serving millions of legal opinions across 421 jurisdictions. The challenge was to completely reimagine the user experience while maintaining the robust functionality that lawyers, journalists, academics, and researchers rely on daily.
CourtListener's platform needed a comprehensive overhaul to improve user engagement and research efficiency. The existing interface struggled to effectively present their vast database of legal opinions, oral arguments, and precedent analysis tools. Our objective was to redesign the entire platform interface while implementing a modern, high-performance frontend that could handle complex search queries and data visualization at scale.
Scope
- UI/UX redesign
- Frontend development
- Information architecture
Approach
Our team began with an extensive discovery phase, analyzing user behavior patterns and conducting stakeholder interviews to understand the diverse needs of CourtListener's user base. We mapped out complex user journeys for different personas including legal professionals, journalists, and researchers.
The design process focused on:
- Streamlining the search interface for efficient legal research
- Developing intuitive navigation patterns for millions of documents
- Creating clear visual hierarchies for complex legal data
- Optimizing precedent network visualizations
- Improving mobile accessibility for on-the-go research
Implementation
We executed the frontend overhaul using a component-based architecture that prioritized performance and accessibility. The implementation focused on:
- Building a responsive design system that scaled across devices
- Optimizing search result delivery through intelligent caching
- Implementing real-time updates using HTMX for seamless user experience
- Creating fluid transitions for complex data visualizations
- Developing mobile-first interfaces for core functionality
- Integrating advanced filtering and sorting capabilities
- Optimizing API response handling for large result sets
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Outcome
The redesigned platform has transformed CourtListener's ability to serve its mission of open legal research:
- 20% increase in average session duration
- 40% faster average page load times
- Enhanced accessibility compliance
- Improved user satisfaction among legal professionals and researchers
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