Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government
| Private | |
| Industry | Information Technology |
| Founded | Washington, D.C., U.S. (January 1981) |
| Founder | William Anthony Hamilton |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
| Products | CJIS, MODULAW, PROMIS |
| Website | http://www.inslawinc.com |
Inslaw, Inc. is a Washington, D.C. based information technology company that markets case management software for corporate and government users.
Inslaw is known for developing Promis, an early case management software system. It is also known for a lawsuit that it brought against the United States Department of Justice in 1986 over Promis. Inslaw won damages in bankruptcy court, but these were overturned on appeal. The suit resulted in several Justice Department internal reviews, two Congressional investigations, the appointment of a special counsel by Attorney General William P. Barr, and a lengthy review of the special counsel's report under Attorney General Janet Reno. Inslaw's claims were finally referred by Congress to the Court of Federal Claims in 1995, and the dispute ended with the Court's ruling against Inslaw in 1998.
During the 12-year long legal proceedings, Inslaw accused the Department of Justice of conspiring to steal its software, attempting to drive it into Chapter 7 liquidation, using the stolen software for covert intelligence operations against foreign governments, and involvement in a murder. These accusations were eventually rejected by the special counsel and the Court of Federal Claims.
Inslaw began as a non-profit organization called the Institute for Law and Social Research. The Institute was founded in 1973 by William A. Hamilton to develop case management software for law enforcement office automation. Funded by grants and contracts from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), the Institute developed a program it called "Promis", an acronym for Prosecutors' Management Information System, for use in law enforcement record keeping and case-monitoring activities. When Congress voted to abolish the LEAA in 1980, Hamilton decided to continue operating as a for-profit corporation and market the software to current and new users. In January 1981 Hamilton established the for-profit Inslaw, transferring the Institute's assets over to the new corporation.
Promis software was originally written in COBOL for use on mainframe computers; later a version was developed to run on 16 bit mini-computers such as the DEC PDP-11. The primary users of this early version of the software were the United States Attorneys Office of the District of Columbia, and state and local law enforcement. Both the mainframe and 16 bit mini-computer versions of Promis were developed under LEAA contracts, and in later litigation, both Inslaw and DOJ eventually agreed that the early version of Promis was in the public domain, meaning that neither the Institute nor its successor had exclusive rights to it.
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