Boing Boing notes two new developments in the legal arena:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/23/opening_up_the_ameri.html

AltLaw:

AltLaw provides the first free, full-text searchable database of Supreme Court and Federal Appellate case reports. It is a resource for attorneys, legal scholars, and the general public.

public.resource.org:

This file is http://bulk.resource.org/courts/gov/0README.html and was last revised on Fri Aug 17 14:41:38 PDT 2007. The goals of this project are:

1. The short-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of the Federal Reporter, the Federal Supplement, and the Federal Appendix.
2. The medium-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of all state and federal cases and codes.

test data (Federal Reporter first edition, volume 2).