About Oyez
Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions (through Justia). Oyez also provides detailed information on every justice throughout the Court’s history and offers a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of several justices.
We would like to thank all who have made a contribution of effort or money on our behalf. Please visit these lists of our financial contributors and former staffers.
The Oyez Team
Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII)
Cornell’s LII is the oldest and largest free law site on the internet. Founded in 1992, the LII was the first website to feature Supreme Court opinions. One of just a handful of authorized recipients of the Court’s HERMES data feed, the LII’s Bulletin service still distributes new opinions instantly through its free email subscription and also in recent years through Twitter and Facebook. The LII website serves over 115 million pages of content annually to more than 30 million unique visitors. Major collections include the opinions of the Supreme Court and Supreme Court Bulletin Previews, along with the US Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Rules, the US Constitution, and Wex--a free legal reference containing over 6,000 entries explaining important legal concepts and terms.
Justia
Along with operating and supporting Oyez’s engineering backend, Justia’s editorial team also manages the writing and editing of Oyez’s case summaries and information.
Justia’s primary mission is to make legal materials and resources free and easy to find on the internet. Through the Justia legal portal, Justia provides users with free case law, codes, regulations, consumer-friendly legal articles and question-answer forums, and a lawyer directory. Justia also works with educational, public interest and other socially focused organizations to bring free legal and consumer information to the online legal community.
David S. Kemp, Managing Editor
David S. Kemp has been the managing editor of Oyez since 2016. He received his JD from UC Berkeley School of Law, where he also served as a professor of legal writing for three years. He is now an adjunct lecturer at both Berkeley Law and Rutgers Law School.
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Professor Jerry Goldman, Director Emeritus
Jerry Goldman, Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University and formerly Research Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, is the founder and original Director of Oyez. Jerry worked on Oyez – his magnum opus – for twenty-five years. For most of that time, he was a professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. Jerry lives in Evanston, Illinois and enjoys fly-fishing in Idaho and Montana with family and friends.
Matt Gruen, Assistant Director and Technical Lead (2008–2016)
Matt, a graduate of Northwestern University with a background in computer science and political science, worked with Professor Goldman for eight years as Oyez’s assistant director and technical lead.
Jeff Parsons, Lead Technical Consultant (2002-2016)
Jeff served in many roles over several years including senior software engineer, data specialist, VR photographer, and all-around creative force. He developed several specialized tools, both to identify and verify speaker identities. No official court transcripts identified the justices until the 2004 Term. Parsons’ command line program IDENTIFY enabled researchers to identify the justices in a typical one-hour argument in about 10 minutes.
Dana Leib, Lead Editor (–2016)
Dana served as the lead abstracter for Oyez for many years, creating and editing summaries of Supreme Court opinions and overseeing other abstracters.
Allison “Allie” Bernstein, Communications and Development Specialist (2015–2016)
During her time at Oyez Allie specialized in reaching out to Oyez users new and old, building new partnerships with other organizations, and spreading the Oyez gospel.
Other Contributors
Heritage Reporting, Transcription (2017–present)
Tech Synergy, Transcription (–present)
Alderson Reporting, Transcription (–2017)
Photo Credits
The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States