The State of Law School Repositories in 2026

I've been sitting on this empty newsletter site for many months now, mulling over a sea of potential writing topics. So, I'm actually going to use my inaugural post to rebroadcast the column I wrote for the Technical Services Law Librarian newsletter through AALL. This will be the first of four columns on repository systems this year, and I'm hoping I can use these columns as a scaffold to guide my writing on this site in the coming year.

I've got a LOT of thoughts about law repositories and what we should be using them for, and I'm looking forward to working these ideas out on this website.

TSLL Law Repositories Column - September 2026

Hello everyone!  I’m happy to bring you the inaugural repositories column in TSLL!  As many of you know, LSRD-SIS has been expanding its scope in recent years to host more conversations and resources for those of us who work with repository systems.  I am looking forward to providing updates and perspectives on repository platforms, metadata, discoverability, and more.

I’m going to kick this column off with a general overview of the state of law school institutional repositories at law schools in 2026, which is turning out to be a pivotal year in the saga of open-access scholarship.  A lot of the buzz at the AALL Annual Meeting was around SSRN’s removal of rankings and paper series, and what that means for the future of the platform as a whole.  These developments have highlighted the importance of institutional repositories as hosts for open-access content, and which IR platforms are best aligned with institutional scholarship goals and needs.

Law Repositories by the Numbers

Based on research I did in fall of 2025, here is a general overview of repositories at U.S. law schools (some of these numbers have changed slightly since I did this review):

• Out of 197 United States law schools, 151 (77%) manage or contribute to an institutional repository
• Out of those 151 schools with access to an IR, 90 (60%) are on their own standalone repositories, while the rest contribute through a university-run repository
• Again from the 151 schools with access to an IR, 122 (81%) are on Elsevier’s Digital Commons, 17 (11%) are on DSpace, and the rest are on homegrown or other independent platforms.

    That last number is staggering but not surprising.  In the “repository boom” period of 2012 to 2017, Digital Commons’ focus on affordability and ease of use made it the default choice for schools that wanted to start a new repository with minimal staffing and IT support.

A Maturing Field

    Now that the field of law repositories has matured, there is more interest than ever in seeking new alternatives and ways to expand the impact and reach of online collections.

    Dedicated and experienced repository managers are looking for new ways to host, display, and publicize legal scholarship, and coming up against some of the limitations of the available platforms.  Many IR sites have a very similar look and feel, with limited options for metadata and description.  Turning these platforms into attractive destinations for researchers is a potential next step in the evolution of these repositories.

    Further, the major IR platforms rely heavily on general web search engines like Google / Google Scholar to facilitate searches for repository content, which means that discoverability is in the hands of third parties that may change their search algorithms at any time.  As AI-powered search starts to muddy the waters of online discovery, repository managers may have to focus on new ways to highlight and disseminate posted work. 

Current and Upcoming Challenges

    As we look ahead to the increasingly uncertain future of the internet, a number of crucial  issues are emerging for IRs:

• Long-Term Stewardship: How can we be confident that our online scholarship collections will remain available, discoverable, and sustainably preserved for years to come?
• Platform Dependence: Can we reduce our reliance on third parties for data storage, access, and discoverability? Alternatively, what areways to mitigate the risks and downsides that come from not controlling our own infrastructure?
• Large Language Models: As LLM-based search reshapes how people find information online, and as the sheer volume of online content grows due to LLM-generated material, institutional repositories will need to grapple with what these shifts mean for our visibility, relevance, and long-term role in the scholarly ecosystem.

Defining Clear Purposes for IRs

    To me, all of these questions about the future of IRs hinge on a very basic question: what are the purposes of our repositories?  Most U.S. law schools are contributing money and/or labor to create and maintain these sites, so the costs are relatively easy to calculate.  The value of an IR, however, is dependent on its institution’s priorities and goals.  A repository can be a marketing tool, an asset for alumni and development efforts, a center for scholarly dissemination and discussion, or other functions involving open access to institutional information and scholarship.

Aligning our repositories with the goals of our libraries and law schools is the best first step towards building relationships and systems that have valuable and measurable impacts.  Those of us looking to grow our repositories into bigger and better systems will need to focus on these goals to stay sustainable and essential to our institutions.