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English technology law firm decoded.legal has published an update on the free software it uses for its work, covering desktop tools, self-hosted services and business applications. Principal Neil Brown says the firm moved from Nextcloud to Syncthing and Radicale, and stopped running a Jitsi server because it saw little use. The account is a report of one small firm’s experience, not an independent assessment of cost, security or suitability for other firms.
Neil Brown, principal of the small English law firm decoded.legal, published a November 6 update describing the free software he uses for the firm’s client work and internal operations. The account documents a setup built largely from free and open-source software, including a change from Nextcloud to Syncthing for file synchronization and the decision to stop operating a Jitsi video-conferencing server.
On the desktop, Brown says he continues to use Debian with GNOME on a ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6. His listed tools include Thunderbird and mutt for email; LibreOffice Writer for documents exchanged with lawyers; and Markdown, vim, pandoc and Typst for other writing and document production. He also uses reveal.js to create presentations from Markdown.
Other tools in his account include Firefox, Evince and Xournal++ for PDF reading and markup, Espanso for text expansion, Vimwiki for professional-development notes, and Paperless-ngx for scanning-related work. Brown says he encrypts the laptop with LUKS and uses Cryptomator to encrypt files before synchronizing them. The list is explicitly not a complete inventory of every application used.
For services, Brown says the firm self-hosts everything listed except Signal. Its infrastructure includes Postfix and Dovecot for email, Syncthing for file synchronization, Radicale for calendar and contact data, InvoicePlane for producing PDF invoices, Kimai for time tracking, and EspoCRM for matter management. He also lists WireGuard for VPN access, Greenbone/OpenVAS for vulnerability scanning, and Uptime Kuma for monitoring. The article describes the tools in use but does not provide cost, performance or security measurements.
How the Firm’s Tools Fit Together
The report offers a concrete view of how a small legal practice can assemble its day-to-day technology from free software and self-hosted services, rather than relying entirely on a single commercial platform. It may be useful to lawyers and other small organizations comparing options for email, documents, file synchronization, billing and time tracking.
Brown’s account also shows that this approach involves ongoing choices and maintenance: he says the firm’s mail infrastructure needs to move, and he is considering what laptop to replace his current one with because its USB-C and Thunderbolt data connections have become unreliable. Those details underscore that software selection is only part of running the system; hardware condition, service administration and compatibility also affect the setup.
The account is one practitioner’s experience, not evidence that the same tools will meet every firm’s confidentiality, compliance, support or reliability needs. Brown does not compare the system with commercial alternatives or quantify savings, downtime or administrative effort.
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Changes Since Earlier Updates
Brown says he began running decoded.legal on free software, on both client and server sides, about five years before this 2026 update. He had written about the experience after roughly the first year and published another update in 2024. The new post follows a recent question about what he currently uses; he describes much of the arrangement as unchanged while noting several adjustments.
The clearest service change was replacing Nextcloud, which Brown says caused more problems than it solved for him, with Syncthing for file synchronization and Radicale for calendar and contact synchronization. He had also run Jitsi for years, but says he stopped a few months before the post because he was hosting it despite limited use. He now offers Signal for video calls; he says he has received no complaints about that change.
Brown’s report reflects the needs of a small firm focused on internet, telecommunications and technology law. It describes the software he personally uses and services he operates, not a general recommendation or an independently audited description of the firm’s technology.
“I just was not getting on with it, and it was causing me more problems than it solved.”
— Neil Brown, principal of decoded.legal
Costs, Security and Migration Plans
The post does not specify the firm’s total software or hosting costs, how much staff time goes into administration, or whether the setup has been assessed against particular legal-sector security or compliance standards. It also does not provide incident, uptime or client-satisfaction data. The software list should not be read as proof that every listed service handles client information in the same way.
Several matters remain open in Brown’s account. He says the laptop’s USB-C and Thunderbolt ports are unreliable for data and that he may need to replace it, but he has not chosen a model. He also plans to move the email infrastructure and is interested in evaluating Stalwart; no date or decision is given. Brown says Thunderbird has trouble with some recurring calendar invitations while ikhal handles them, but he has not investigated the cause.
Planned Email and Hardware Reviews
Brown identifies a future mail-server move as a task and says he wants to examine Stalwart, while his current setup uses Postfix and Dovecot. The post does not give a migration timetable or say whether Stalwart will be adopted. His next laptop choice is also undecided, pending the ongoing hardware issue with his current ThinkPad.
For readers following the firm’s technology, the next meaningful update would be confirmation of whether either change proceeds and how the replacement systems perform in practice. Until then, the published account records the tools Brown says he is using as of November 2026, alongside issues and possible changes that remain unresolved.
Key Questions
What did decoded.legal report?
Principal Neil Brown published an update on the free software used at his small English law firm, covering desktop applications, self-hosted services and business tools.
What changed since the previous setup?
Brown says he replaced Nextcloud with Syncthing for file synchronization and Radicale for calendar and contact data. He also stopped running a Jitsi server and now offers Signal for video calls.
Does the report show how much the setup costs?
No. Brown lists software and services but does not provide a total cost, savings estimate, or comparison with commercial alternatives.
Is decoded.legal moving to Stalwart for email?
Not yet, according to the post. Brown says he needs to move the mail infrastructure and wants to investigate Stalwart, but gives no decision or timetable.
Does Brown recommend this software for every law firm?
The post is an account of one firm’s experience, not a general recommendation or an independent review of whether the tools meet another practice’s operational and security requirements.
Source: decoded.legal
