The Free Law Project community receives funding from our creators right now. Brian and Michael are actively looking for grants from educational institutions and state law associations too. At freelawproject.org, you can find partnerships we have with various law companies that use courtlistener data. The legal research technologies CourtListener and JuriScraper are provided for free, to help spur the development of open law research platforms. Thus, the project is self-funded-- the server resides in Brian's office.
There is no foundation that backs it at the moment, but Brian and Michael are seeking 501(c)(3) non-profit recognition. This would potentially allow for the fundraising and allocation of money for developer salaries and educational grants. If this goes through, Free Law Project has a great chance to change the landscape of law research by democratizing it. The entire law corpus, for example, is downloadable for free.
The Free Law Project currently accepts donations, though it is not permanently featured on the home page. Michael only recently added donation boxes a few weeks ago. This does not affect the overall project's continuity because no one expects payment and has been working purely in academic pursuit. There are no competing products that are free-- all are paid services with ridiculous licensing fees.
My project role is do develop new user interface designs, suggest/recommend improvements, gain market awareness through marketing, and creating a community platform/resource for each state. I hope to continue to work as creative director in the future.