Impact
What we have built, and how we measure it.
OpenVerdict is an early-stage organization. This page describes what exists today and how we judge whether it is working, without dressing up the numbers.
What is live today
A working case docket
Landmark and lower-profile cases are open for deliberation right now, each with a plain-language account of the facts, the competing arguments, and what is at stake.
Linked to the real record
Cases link to the public court record through CourtListener, so any reader can check our summary against the filing rather than taking it on trust.
Structured argument
Arguments are grouped by the side they support, can cite sources, and can be posted as a declared devil's advocate so the strongest opposing case gets made.
Open participation
Reading a case, weighing the arguments and casting a verdict require no account and no payment. Signing in only adds a record that follows you.
Current counts of open cases, jurors and verdicts are shown live on the case docket. We would rather point you at the real number than print one here that goes stale.
How we judge whether this is working
Traffic is the easiest number to grow and the least meaningful one for a deliberation platform. The measures we actually care about are harder:
Did people read before they voted?
We track whether a juror opened the record and the opposing arguments before casting a verdict, because a vote cast without either is not deliberation.
Did anyone change their mind?
Mind changes are recorded and credited to the argument that caused them. A room where nobody moves is a room that is not listening.
Did the minority position get made well?
Declared devil's advocate arguments exist so the losing side is argued properly rather than strawmanned. We watch whether they show up.
Did the reasoning outlast the vote?
Arguments and verdicts stay on the public record so the account of what the public thought, and why, is citable later.
What we are building next
Expanding the docket beyond landmark cases into the ordinary decisions that shape far more lives and receive far less attention. Bringing the same structure to legislation as well as litigation. Building classroom material so the platform can be used to teach how a case is actually read and argued.
We are a small team funded by grants and individual donations. Progress is bounded by that, and we would rather say so plainly than imply a scale we do not have.