How do you make money if you're giving away all your content for free?

There's a commercial twin to LexPublica, called 8.5×14 (named after legal-size paper). It will provide a wide range of commercial services, both for people and businesses who need legal services, and for the lawyers who serve them. These services will be built around LexPublica’s open content and open APIs.

As one example, imagine an online workspace to manage your business’s standard contract templates, your contract negotiations and your dealings with your lawyer. The service is simple contract management, something like the Basecamp project management web service, but for contracts and negotiations.

8.5×14 has other commercial services on the drawing board, and we’ll be talking about those as we develop them. Check out our blog and Twitter feed for updates.