If we're going to move to a consuming-our-own-API model, then that's going to benefit from an object caching system. Inevitably, that means Memcached or/or ElastiCache. ElastiCache has the advantage of being a turn-key setup, although Memcached seems awfully easy to install.

This ought to be pretty easy to interface with. The method to retrieve each type of content—say, a law—would take the file off the filesystem, unless Memcached is installed, in which case it pulls it out of Memcached.