About OLSI
Everyone deserves to understand and assert their rights, whatever their means.
Open Law Services Institute is a 501(c)(3) public charity working to expand access to legal knowledge and representation for low-income individuals, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations in civil matters — with a focus on the complex civil disputes that traditional legal aid is often unable to take on. We believe a person’s wealth, an organization’s size, or a lack of institutional resources should never decide whether they can understand and assert their rights.
Open Law Services Institute is a nonprofit and a registered 501(c)(3) public charity. EIN 42-2351258. Contributions may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Official organization information
Who we are, on the record
Open Law Services Institute owns and operates this website, openlawservices.org. Our registered nonprofit details:
Every OLSI guide is written and reviewed by licensed attorneys.
Our practice guides, templates, and explainers are developed and reviewed by attorneys licensed to practice law, and checked against official, current sources before we publish them. We write in plain English so the law is usable by the people it affects — not only the lawyers who study it.
Every resource OLSI publishes is released under an open Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) — meaning our guides, templates, and explainers are free not merely to read, but to copy, adapt, and further disseminate. We license our work this way so that other legal-aid organizations, nonprofits, law-school clinics, and individual attorneys may share and build upon OLSI’s materials freely, extending their reach to the people who need them most.
OLSI provides legal information and education, not legal advice. We are not a law firm, and using this site does not create an attorney–client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult a Florida-licensed attorney.
What we do
Six ways we expand access to justice
OLSI combines public legal education with long-term plans for direct, coordinated pro bono support — building the infrastructure that underserved civil matters have always lacked.
Public legal education
Plain-language guides, procedural explainers, and educational publications that make civil law understandable to non-lawyers.
Open-access resources
Guides, templates, and sample forms published free for anyone to read, download, and use — no account, no paywall.
Support for self-represented litigants
Step-by-step tools that help people navigate civil procedure and assert their rights when handling a case on their own.
A collaborative legal network
A growing network of attorneys, legal professionals, law students, and academic partners sharing knowledge and mentorship.
Pro bono legal services
Over time, coordinated volunteer-attorney programs to take on complex civil matters that are hard to place through traditional legal aid.
Partnerships & capacity building
Collaboration with legal aid organizations, bar associations, law firms, and universities to strengthen the access-to-justice ecosystem.
Who we serve
The communities most often left without counsel
Traditional legal aid is vital but limited — funding pushes it toward emergency and high-volume work. The people and organizations below are frequently left to face complex civil matters alone.
Low-income individuals
People who need help understanding and navigating a civil legal matter but cannot afford to retain counsel.
Small businesses
Businesses without the resources to hire lawyers for complex disputes or compliance questions.
Nonprofit organizations
Nonprofits needing guidance on governance, operations, compliance, or litigation risk.
Our story
How OLSI began — and what it has built
Open Law Services Institute was established in early 2026 as a nonprofit corporation, incorporated in Delaware and launched in Florida, its first state of operation. The IRS recognizes OLSI as a 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 42-2351258). We were created to close a documented gap: most people, small businesses, and nonprofits facing civil legal problems cannot afford a lawyer and cannot navigate the system alone.
Florida is one of only three states that appropriate no state funding for civil legal aid at all. Nearly half of Florida households — 47%, those in poverty and the working poor just above it — cannot reliably afford life’s essentials, legal help among them, and in late 2025 Florida recorded the highest home-foreclosure rate of any state in the nation. When people cannot afford a lawyer and the state funds no help, civil cases — evictions, debt-collection suits, consumer fraud, contract and employment disputes — are decided by default rather than on their merits. For most Floridians facing these problems, free, reliable, plain-English legal information is not a convenience; it is the only help available. That is the gap OLSI was built to close.
Since launching openlawservices.org in 2026, OLSI has published 15 free, plain-English civil legal guides — each written and reviewed by licensed attorneys and paired with a video walkthrough and a downloadable PDF — covering civil litigation, small-business, and nonprofit matters. Every resource is released under an open Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA), so other legal-aid organizations, nonprofits, law-school clinics, and attorneys can copy, adapt, and share them with the people they serve.
The response was immediate. In OLSI’s first two months of operation, its open-access resources drew approximately 68,000 requests from nearly 20,000 distinct users — real people, small-business owners, and nonprofit representatives seeking legal help, many returning for more than one resource. OLSI concentrates on the communities traditional legal aid is least able to reach: low-income individuals, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations facing the complex civil matters — contract, employment, governance, compliance, and commercial disputes — that high-volume programs must turn away.
Our focus
Built for the cases others can’t take on
Most legal aid focuses on high-volume or emergency matters. OLSI deliberately concentrates on the complex civil disputes — contract, employment, governance, compliance, and commercial litigation — that demand substantial research and strategy, and that self-represented litigants and small organizations are most likely to abandon for lack of help. We envision a civil justice system where access to high-quality legal knowledge and representation is not determined by wealth, institutional resources, or organizational size. Today that work is concrete: OLSI publishes 15 attorney-reviewed guides — each with a companion video walkthrough and a downloadable template — across civil litigation, small-business, and nonprofit law, all free and openly licensed.