Drafting
In production
The Pandoc Pleading
Captions, tables of authorities, and signature blocks — driven by a firm reference template.
The open-source practice
Open source tools for serious legal work.
A practitioner’s guide to replacing proprietary software with free, scriptable tools — drafting in Markdown, turning PDF productions into searchable data, and automating the grind.
- Pandoc
- Tesseract OCR
- qpdf
- Git
- SQLite
- Python
- Pandoc
- Tesseract OCR
- qpdf
- Git
- SQLite
- Python
0
Core tools, all open source
$0
Licensing, forever
0
Pages indexed in one pass
0
Command from notes to filing
Focus areas
Two disciplines that carry the practice
Most of the repetitive grind in legal work comes down to two things: producing documents, and working through the other side’s papers.
Focus 01 — The drafting desk
Write once, in plain text.
Pleadings, briefs, and letters live in Markdown — a format you can read in 1999 or 2099. One command turns the draft into a court-ready Word document, formatted by your firm’s reference template.
- One source of truth. The .md file is the document — no more v7_final_REAL.
- Pandoc + your template means every filing looks like it came from the same desk.
- Tables of authorities and signature blocks that format themselves.
- Git gives every draft a full history — diff, revert, and a clean audit trail.
- Plain text survives every tool, every vendor, every format war.
Focus 02 — The document mill
Turn a production into data.
The other side’s production arrives as three thousand scanned pages. You leave with a full-text index, searchable Bates cites, and clean PDFs for the client — in an afternoon, not a summer.
- Tesseract OCR turns image-only pages into text.
- SQLite + FTS5 puts the entire production under full-text search.
- qpdf splits, merges, repairs, and Bates-numbers files.
- Bates maps and segmentation for complex compilations and disclosure sets.
- Searchable PDF copies for clients who refuse to read.
Live demos
Try the workflow before you install anything.
Two working simulations of the core pipelines. No install, no account — just the idea, executable.
Simulated preview — the real pipeline runs pandoc with your firm’s reference template.
Court-ready document
Simulated against an 8-document sample production — the real pipeline searches thousands of OCR’d pages via SQLite FTS5.
The toolbox
Six tools. Zero licenses.
Everything used in the workflows here is open source, free, and runs on your own machine. Nothing phones home.
Pandoc
The universal document converter — Markdown to court-ready Word, PDF, and more.
Tesseract
The OCR engine that turns scanned pages into searchable text.
qpdf
Split, merge, repair, and renumber PDF files from the command line.
Git
Version control for every draft — a full, defensible history of how a document evolved.
SQLite
A local, full-text-searchable index of your document production. One file, no server.
Python
The glue that automates the repetitive work between the other tools.
The workflow
From notes to filing, in four moves
A simple, repeatable pipeline that keeps documents clean and consistent every single time.
-
Draft
Write in Markdown. Plain text — fast to edit, easy to review, and under version control.
-
Convert
Pandoc turns the draft into a formatted Word document using your firm’s template.
-
Search
OCR and index the other side’s production. Find every page that matters in seconds.
-
File
Clean, consistent, court-ready documents — every single time.
Why open source
No lock-in. No fees. Full control.
Your work is yours
Documents live in plain text and open formats. No subscriptions, no proprietary files, and no vendor holding your own work hostage.
It’s free
Every tool in the stack costs nothing. The only expense is a little time to learn — time you get back many times over.
It’s scriptable
If a task takes more than a few clicks, it can be automated. One command can process a thousand pages exactly the way you would.
| Proprietary suite | Open source stack | |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | Per seat, per year | $0, forever |
| Your files | Proprietary formats | Plain text + open formats |
| Automation | Clicks and macros | One command, any number of documents |
| If the vendor folds | Your files are ransom | The tools live on |
Plain text is a legal right.
Anything you can read without software can’t be held hostage.
If it repeats, automate it.
A task that takes more than a few clicks deserves a script.
Boring is a feature.
The tools you never think about are the ones that work.
The library
Guides in production
Step-by-step walkthroughs written for practicing lawyers — templates, scripts, and checklists. Each one ships complete.
PDF
In production
OCR a 2,000-Page Production
The full Tesseract pipeline: extraction, quality checks, and a searchable full-text index.
PDF
In production
Bates, Mapped
Numbering, segmentation, and Bates maps for compilations and disclosure sets.
Workflow
In production
Git for Lawyers
Versioning drafts, diffing revisions, and keeping an audit trail the court would accept.
Questions
Asked often, answered plainly
No. The guides are written for lawyers, not engineers. Every workflow is a handful of copy-paste commands; the Python appears only where it saves real time, and it’s always optional.
Courts accept Word and PDF — and that’s what you file. Markdown is your working format: the place where the document is fast, diff-able, and future-proof. The conversion step exists precisely so the court sees the format it expects.
Everything runs locally on your machine. No cloud, no telemetry, no account. Your matter never leaves your hardware — which, for a privileged document, is the whole point.
Every tool in the stack is open source with no cost. The guides on this site are free, too. If a workflow ever needs a paid service, the guide will say so up front and show you the free alternative.
It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux — including ARM laptops — and everything is local, so there’s no network access to block. The guides start from a clean install, so they double as your IT request sheet.
The library opens soon.
Four guides are in production now. Each ships complete — templates, scripts, and checklists included.
See what’s coming