Gijs van Dijck, member of the Digital Legal Lab and Professor of Private Law at Maastricht University, has announced the release of an innovative software platform, Lawnotation. Developed in collaboration with the Maastricht Law & Tech Lab and the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society (BISS), the platform is set to transform the way legal professionals and researchers interact with legal documents.

Lawnotation is an innovative, open-source platform designed for the efficient annotation of legal and other types of documents. Freely available to all users, it combines advanced functionality with an intuitive interface, ensuring a smooth and straightforward user experience. The platform offers tools for locating legal data, particularly court cases, creating annotation projects, calculating interrater agreement, and sharing datasets—all integrated into a single, cohesive system. The platform embodies open-source accessibility, promoting transparency and encouraging community-driven development. Its streamlined workflow eliminates unnecessary steps, ensuring that users can navigate and operate the system without frustration or “clunky clicking.” Additionally, Lawnotation facilitates collaboration by allowing researchers to share annotated datasets, fostering the exchange of ideas and collaborative innovation in legal research.

This groundbreaking tool is the result of a collaborative effort by a dedicated team, including Carlos Eduardo Aguilera Medina, Shashank Chakravarthy, Sander van Essel, Chris van der Lans, and Hannes Westermann. 

By bridging the gap between legal research and technology, Lawnotation offers a transformative approach to modern legal analysis. It is already gaining recognition within the legal tech community for its potential to simplify complex research processes and make legal data more accessible. Whether you are a legal scholar, practitioner, or technology enthusiast, Lawnotation provides an exciting opportunity to revolutionize how we engage with legal information.