Openfront Law Firm
openship.org
What it is
Openfront Law Firm is an open-source application for coordinating legal-practice operations, from intake and conflict review through matters, billing, trust records, and client collaboration. It brings together matter teams, courts and deadlines, communications, time and expenses, invoicing, and trust ledgers. Firm memberships and roles, matter assignments, ethical walls, and precise portal grants shape access. Append-only history or compensating operations preserve changes to records such as documents, invoices, trust entries, and audit events. Integration controls include encrypted credential records, external links, webhooks, API keys, and OAuth authorization. These documented boundaries do not themselves send real email or texts, store real documents, collect payments, calculate deadlines, file with courts, or obtain signatures. The current source has neither public intake nor a client-facing portal interface. Deployment uses Node.js, Next.js, Keystone, Prisma, and PostgreSQL; production requires public and internal HTTPS origins. Openfront Law Firm is free to self-deploy, but the general paid plans do not specify a price for this product.
Spec sheet
- Purpose
- Openfront Law Firm is an open-source legal-practice operations application for firm intake, conflicts, matters, documents, billing, trust records, client sharing, integrations, retention, and controlled agent work.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Audience
- The maker describes the intended audience as law firms and legal operations teams needing connected matter work, financial records, client collaboration, document history, and integration controls in infrastructure they choose.Read 29 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Deployment
- The product documentation says to run it with Node.js, Next.js, Keystone, Prisma, and PostgreSQL, and requires explicit public and internal HTTPS origins for production.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Free plan
- YesRead 21 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Integrations
- It implements provider connection records, encrypted credential envelopes, external record links, communication delivery and webhook records, API-key authentication, and OAuth authorization code with S256 PKCE.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Support
- The free plan includes community support, while the Starter plan lists email support, Professional lists priority support and Enterprise lists a dedicated account manager.Read 14 Oct 2026 · openship.org
- Founded
- 2019Read 28 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Maker
- The About page identifies Junaid Kabani as founder and CEO and says he started building Openship in 2019.Read 29 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Access controls
- The documentation describes firm memberships and roles, matter team assignments, ethical walls, and exact matter and resource grants for portal access.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Authentication extensibility
- The documented integration layer implements API-key authentication, OAuth authorization-code flow with S256 PKCE, refresh-token rotation and grant-scoped agent credentials.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Billing
- Billing models rate cards and rules, time, expenses, retainers, invoices, payments, allocations and refunds.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Client intake
- YesRead 21 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Client portal controls
- Portal operations invite contacts, grant exact matter capabilities, share specific resources and revoke access without broad list reads.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Communications
- Communication records cover threads, participants, messages, delivery records and delivery attempts.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Company headquarters
- LinkedIn lists the company headquarters as Remote, US.Read 14 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Company size
- LinkedIn lists Openship as a privately held internet-publishing company with 2–10 employees.Read 14 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Compliance caveat
- The maker says the software does not guarantee legal-ethics, privilege, trust-accounting, privacy, retention, signature, security, or jurisdiction-specific compliance.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Compliance limitation
- The documentation says the software does not guarantee ethics, privilege, trust-accounting, privacy, retention, signature, security or jurisdiction-specific compliance.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Current interface limits
- The current source does not supply public intake or a client-facing portal UI.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Deployment limits
- A deployment for real firm data needs its own reviewed migration and restore procedure, managed secrets and encryption keys, tested provider adapters, monitoring, incident response, and jurisdiction-specific legal review.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Deployment model
- The product is designed to run on infrastructure chosen by the firm, with the application and PostgreSQL database deployed under organizational control.Read 14 Oct 2026 · openship.org
- Documents and signatures
- Document functionality includes documents, immutable versions, signature requests, signers and signature events.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Extension path
- Developers extend the product through Keystone models, reviewed migrations, narrow mutations, provider adapters, dashboard routes and explicit API, OAuth or agent scopes.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Founder
- The maker’s about page identifies Junaid Kabani as founder and CEO and says he began building Openship in 2019.Read 14 Oct 2026 · openship.org
- GraphQL API
- The application exposes a bounded GraphQL API with scoped queries and named operations for onboarding, intake, access, billing, trust, portal, integrations, retention and agent actions.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- HTTP security boundary
- The GraphQL boundary requires JSON for ordinary POST calls, restricts multipart uploads to the configured public origin, limits bodies and list sizes, caps query depth, disables HTTP introspection and redacts internal error extensions.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Install workflow
- The documented setup starts with npm install, local PostgreSQL configuration, schema build, type checking, tests, linting and application build.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Intake and conflicts
- The system models contacts, intake submissions, consultations, conflict checks, matches and reviewer dispositions.Read 14 Oct 2026 · openship.org
- Integration limit
- The current source does not itself send real email or SMS, store real documents, collect payments, calculate court deadlines, submit filings or obtain signatures.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Integration limits
- The documented integration boundaries do not themselves send real email or SMS, store real documents, collect payments, calculate court deadlines, submit court filings, or obtain signatures.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Legal entity
- A California business-directory record lists Openship Inc as an active general corporation filed on October 20, 2025, with a principal address in Long Beach, California.Read 14 Oct 2026 · bizprofile.net
- Matter management
- Matter workflows include parties, teams, ethical walls, courts, dockets, deadlines, entries and tasks.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Organization activity
- GitHub lists openfront-law-firm as a public TypeScript repository updated July 18, 2026.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Pricing page scope
- The pricing page lists general Openfront plans but asks visitors to select a platform, and does not state a price specifically for Openfront Law Firm.Read 29 Sep 2026 · openship.org
- Product purpose
- Openfront Law Firm is an open-source legal-practice operations application for firm-owned intake, conflicts, matters, documents, billing, trust, portals and governance.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Provider integrations
- Provider connections, encrypted credential envelopes, external record links, communication deliveries, signatures and webhooks are represented, but adapters are deployment-specific.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Public-interface limit
- The current source supplies neither a public-intake interface nor a client-facing portal UI.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Record history
- The application uses append-only records or compensating operations for items including invoice lines, document versions, trust entries, signature events, and audit events.Read 29 Sep 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Repository activity
- GitHub shows the openfront-law-firm repository as public with zero stars, zero forks and one commit.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Repository API endpoint
- The repository README identifies /api/graphql as the GraphQL endpoint and says it supports CRUD operations, relationships and authentication.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Repository deployment
- The repository README says deployment can target any platform supporting Node.js and PostgreSQL by building with npm run build and starting with npm start.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Repository prerequisites
- The repository README lists Node.js 18 or newer and a PostgreSQL database as prerequisites.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Repository technology
- The public repository describes a Next.js 15 and React 19 frontend with KeystoneJS 6, Prisma, GraphQL Yoga, PostgreSQL, S3-compatible storage, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Retention and governance
- Governance features include retention policies, holds, audit events, API keys, OAuth clients and tokens, agent principals, credentials, grants and action events.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Runtime requirements
- Installation requires Node.js, Next.js, Keystone, Prisma and PostgreSQL, plus configured database and secret environment variables.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Security controls
- Access checks fail closed across user, firm, membership, role, active-firm, machine, matter and ethical-wall scopes, and credential material is omitted from GraphQL reads.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Security gap
- The documentation says application controls do not replace managed key storage, centralized rate limiting, monitoring, incident response, penetration testing, backup restoration or provider review.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Trust accounting records
- The data model includes trust accounts, client and matter subledgers, transactions, entries, snapshots and reconciliations.Read 14 Oct 2026 · docs.openship.org
- Workflows
- It organizes intake and conflict review, matters and teams, courts and deadlines, communications, time and expenses, invoicing, trust ledgers, and client sharing.Read 29 Sep 2026 · openship.org
Plans and prices
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Free self-deployment with full source access
- Coordinates matters, teams, deadlines, and financial records
- Includes ethical walls and resource-specific portal grants
- Supports API keys and OAuth authorization
Limits
- No public intake or client-facing portal UI
- Integrations do not collect payments or send messages
- No product-specific price stated for paid plans
- Compliance is not guaranteed by the maker
Who it suits
It suits law firms and legal operations teams seeking connected matter work, financial records, client collaboration, and document history in infrastructure they choose. It is less suited to firms expecting public intake or a ready-to-use client portal interface.
Verdict
Openfront Law Firm documents a broad set of practice workflows and access controls for teams deploying their own infrastructure. Real firm use still calls for reviewed deployment procedures, tested integrations, and jurisdiction-specific legal review.
Where Specifiction places it
- Legal Practice Management Software#10 of 1409.0
- Legal Workflow Automation Software#5 of 228.4