About OLPN
The Open Legal Publishing Network (OLPN) is a framework for decentralized legal publishing and identity.
It connects verified lawyers, firms, and organizations to the content they create, building a legal graph of trusted relationships between people, organizations, and legal content.
OLPN is designed to empower the legal community with tools they own and control, free from proprietary lock-in or centralized platforms.
When complete, it will be fully open-source, enabling anyone to build on and contribute to the network.
Why OLPN Exists
Legal publishing today is fragmented:
- Lawyers and firms rely on closed platforms that control their identities and audiences.
- Legal content lacks machine-readable context, making it difficult for search engines and AI to understand or connect.
- Verification of credentials and authorship often requires manual, trust-based processes.
OLPN addresses these problems by:
- Giving lawyers, firms, and organizations portable, domain-owned identities.
- Issuing verifiable credentials for authorship, employment, and bar membership.
- Structuring content for SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), making it easy for both humans and machines to interpret.
Core Components
The OLPN ecosystem consists of three foundational projects:
| Project | Purpose | Built With |
|---|---|---|
| OLPN ID | WordPress plugin for creating identity hubs and issuing credentials. Best for law firms, bar associations, and other credentialing organizations. | PHP / WordPress |
| OLPN Clusters | WordPress plugin that optimizes site structure, internal linking, and URL design for SEO and AI-driven discovery. Builds clear relationships between contributors, topics, and jurisdictions. | PHP / WordPress |
| OLPN Resolver | A Go-based service hosted at olpn.org that verifies and resolves IDs, credentials, and clusters, returning trusted JSON-LD data for discovery and search. | Golang |
How It Works
- Create an Identity Hub
- A lawyer, firm, or bar association sets up a WordPress site using OLPN ID.
- This site becomes their source of truth, containing verified profiles and credentials.
- Structure Content with Clusters
- Publishers and firms use OLPN Clusters to organize legal content for better navigation, SEO, and machine readability.
- Verify with the Resolver
- The OLPN Resolver checks IDs, credentials, and content relationships.
- It outputs machine-verifiable JSON-LD, powering the legal graph and enabling decentralized search.
Who It's For
- Law Firms & Bar Associations
Build official hubs that represent attorneys and issue verified credentials. - Legal Publishers & Networks
Structure content for discovery, federation, and AI readiness. - Individual Lawyers
Own and control their professional identity through a personal domain. - Developers & Technologists
Build new tools and services on top of OLPN’s open infrastructure.
Why It Matters
- Ownership: Identities and content stay with the people and organizations who create them.
- Portability: Move between platforms without losing data, followers, or trust.
- Discovery: Create a structured, verifiable network of legal information for search engines and AI.
- Transparency: Open standards and open-source code ensure long-term sustainability.
The Road Ahead
OLPN is currently in early development, with plans to:
- Stabilize the core plugins and Resolver service.
- Publish documentation for developers and organizations.
- Fully open-source the codebase once it reaches production readiness.
Follow our progress at github.com/olpn and join the effort to build a free, open, and verifiable future for legal publishing.