The San Francisco city government launched SF Open Law this week — to make all of its laws open for people who code, build, and design to use. Legal professionals can use it to build new tools.
It’s a repository for hackers to make better legal apps & tools for the city. And it’s a collaborative too, allowing people who have made things to add it to a collective resource.
Here’s the initiative’s self-description
Open Law represents a commitment by the City and County of San Francisco to releasing one of our most important pieces of information—the law—to the public in formats that make it more accessible. Following on our landmark Open Data Policy, the laws of San Francisco are released in technologist-friendly formats that can power new applications that enhance understanding, improve access and lead to new insights about the law.
These applications have yet to emerge, but we believe giving unprecedented access to the law will unleash creativity from the community. Imagine, for example, if you could:
- Discover all the laws impacting small businesses in an easy, modern, browsable format
- Find amusing or outdated laws from a bygone era
- Explore the legal actions and ordinances that led to Municipal Code changes more easily
- Share and discuss laws and get answers from certified legal resources in the community