Terms of Service

By clicking “I Agree,” creating an account, or accessing or using the Service, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service on behalf of a law firm, company, or other entity, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity, and “you” includes that entity. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not access or use the Service.

AlwaysPresent is a legal-technology platform that monitors publicly available court information and provides related docketing, calendaring, and case-management tools for law firms and legal professionals.

Not Legal Advice

law.tools is not a law firm, does not provide legal advice or legal services, and does not engage in the practice of law. Use of the Service does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and law.tools. The Service is provided for informational and administrative purposes only and is not a substitute for the professional judgment of a licensed attorney.

Not a Consumer Reporting Agency

law.tools is not a “consumer reporting agency” as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (“FCRA”), and the Service is not a “consumer report.” You may not use the Service or any information obtained through it, in whole or in part, for any purpose regulated by the FCRA or by comparable state law, including determining eligibility for credit, employment, insurance, housing, or government benefits.

No Warranty of Accuracy

You are solely responsible for reviewing and verifying all court dates, deadlines, filings, party information, and case information against the official court record and for meeting all professional, legal, and ethical obligations, including all applicable bar rules.

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into these Terms. You must provide accurate and complete account information and keep it current.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activity occurring through your account. You must promptly notify us at legal@law.tools of any unauthorized access to or use of your account.

If you are an administrator for an organization, you are responsible for managing your authorized users and ensuring that only authorized personnel access the Service.

You may use the Service only for lawful internal business purposes and in compliance with these Terms and applicable law. You may not, and may not permit any third party to:

• copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, sublicense, or otherwise commercially exploit the Service or its data except as expressly permitted by law.tools;
• reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to discover the source code, underlying systems, or data feeds of the Service;
• scrape, harvest, or extract data from the Service through automated means without our prior written permission;
• access, or attempt to access, any account, data, or system without authorization, or exceed the scope of authorized access;
• interfere with, disrupt, or circumvent the security, integrity, rate limits, or operation of the Service;
• use the Service for any unlawful, fraudulent, discriminatory, harassing, threatening, stalking, or otherwise harmful purpose; or
• use the Service or any output for any FCRA-regulated purpose or for employment, tenant, credit, insurance, or similar eligibility determinations.

The Service relies on publicly available court records and third-party systems. Court information may be delayed, incomplete, inaccurate, unavailable, changed, or removed without notice. The official court record controls in all circumstances.

You are solely responsible for independently verifying all hearings, deadlines, filings, and case activity against the official court record. law.tools is not responsible or liable for missed hearings, missed deadlines, sanctions, filing errors, data inaccuracies, court-system outages, or other consequences arising from your use of or reliance on the Service.

We may modify, suspend, discontinue, or limit any portion of the Service at any time, with or without notice.

The Service uses automated systems, algorithms, and machine-assisted processes to retrieve, extract, classify, match, and surface court information. These automated processes may produce errors, omissions, or misclassifications. You acknowledge that the Service does not make legal, professional, or eligibility decisions about any person, and you agree not to rely on the Service as the sole basis for any decision affecting the legal rights or obligations of any party.

Information about how we process personal information, including automated processing, is described in our Privacy Policy.

The Service may provide calendar feeds, including .ics feeds, accessed via unique tokenized URLs. Anyone who possesses the URL may access the associated calendar data. You are solely responsible for keeping calendar feed URLs confidential and securing the devices and applications where they are configured. We may revoke calendar-feed access if an account or authorized user is deactivated, suspended, or terminated.

As between you and law.tools, you retain ownership of the information, case selections, and other data you submit to the Service (“Customer Data”). You grant law.tools a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, process, transmit, and use Customer Data as necessary to operate, maintain, secure, support, and improve the Service and as described in our Privacy Policy.

Each party will use the other party’s non-public confidential information only as necessary to perform under these Terms and will protect it using reasonable care. Confidential information does not include information that is publicly available, independently developed, lawfully received from another source, or required to be disclosed by law.

The Service, including its software, design, features, documentation, branding, and content (excluding Customer Data and public court records), is owned by law.tools or its licensors and is protected by applicable intellectual-property laws. Subject to these Terms, law.tools grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable right to access and use the Service for your internal business purposes. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Any feedback, suggestions, or recommendations you provide regarding the Service may be used by law.tools without restriction or compensation.

Fees, plan limits, billing terms, and payment obligations, if any, will be set forth in an applicable order form, subscription plan, invoice, or other written agreement between you and law.tools. Unless otherwise stated in writing, fees are non-refundable and payable in U.S. dollars. You are responsible for applicable taxes, excluding taxes based on law.tools’ net income. If payment is overdue, we may suspend or terminate access until all outstanding amounts are paid. If an order form conflicts with these Terms, the order form controls to the extent of the conflict.

Your use of the Service is subject to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference and explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect personal information.

You consent to receive communications from us electronically, including notices, agreements, disclosures, and other records, at the email address associated with your account or through the Service. You agree that electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that a communication be in writing.

You consent to the use of electronic signatures and agree that your electronic acceptance of these Terms has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature. You may withdraw this consent by closing your account, but doing so will terminate your right to use the Service.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, LAW.TOOLS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, AVAILABILITY, AND ERROR-FREE OPERATION. LAW.TOOLS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR FREE OF ERRORS OR HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, LAW.TOOLS AND ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, OR MISSED DEADLINES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, LAW.TOOLS’ TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO LAW.TOOLS FOR THE SERVICE DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).

NOTHING IN THESE TERMS LIMITS LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED OR EXCLUDED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, INCLUDING UNDER CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE § 1668.

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS.

15.1 Agreement to Arbitrate. You and law.tools agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, whether based in contract, tort, statute, fraud, misrepresentation, or any other legal theory (a “Dispute”), will be resolved exclusively by final and binding individual arbitration, except as provided in Sections 15.2 and 15.3. This agreement is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.

15.2 Small-Claims Carve-Out. Either party may bring an individual action in small-claims court for any Dispute within the scope of that court’s jurisdiction, in lieu of arbitration.

15.3 Injunctive Relief for Intellectual Property. Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in the state or federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California, to protect its intellectual-property rights or confidential information, without first submitting the matter to arbitration.

15.4 Administrator and Rules. Arbitration will be administered by JAMS under its Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures (for claims under $250,000) or Comprehensive Arbitration Rules and Procedures (for claims of $250,000 or more), in effect at the time arbitration is initiated. The rules are available at www.jamsadr.com.

15.5 Arbitrator, Location, and Fees. Arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator. The seat of arbitration is Los Angeles County, California, but the arbitrator may conduct hearings by telephone or videoconference. Each party will bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs except as otherwise required by applicable law, JAMS rules, or the arbitrator’s award. law.tools will pay all JAMS filing, administrative, and arbitrator fees to the extent required by JAMS Consumer Minimum Standards or California Code of Civil Procedure § 1284.3, where applicable.

15.6 Class-Action Waiver. ANY DISPUTE MUST BE BROUGHT IN THE PARTIES’ INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE OR JOIN MORE THAN ONE PERSON’S CLAIMS AND MAY NOT PRESIDE OVER ANY FORM OF REPRESENTATIVE OR CLASS PROCEEDING. Notwithstanding this waiver, either party retains the right to seek public injunctive relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to the extent required by California law.

15.7 Delegation. The arbitrator has exclusive authority to resolve any dispute regarding the interpretation, applicability, enforceability, or formation of this Section 15, except that a court of competent jurisdiction has exclusive authority to decide (a) the enforceability of the class-action waiver in Section 15.6 and (b) any claim for public injunctive relief.

15.8 Severability. If the class-action waiver in Section 15.6 is found unenforceable as to any claim, that claim will be severed and litigated in the courts identified in Section 16, while the remaining claims proceed in arbitration.

15.9 Informal Resolution. Before initiating arbitration, the party bringing the Dispute must send a written notice describing the Dispute and requested relief to legal@law.tools (or, for law.tools, to the account email on file). The parties will attempt in good faith to resolve the Dispute within 60 days of the notice. Arbitration may be initiated only after that period.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Subject to Section 15, any Dispute not subject to arbitration will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California, and the parties consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue of those courts.

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service if you violate these Terms, fail to pay applicable fees, create a security risk, misuse the Service, or if suspension or termination is required to protect law.tools, its users, or the Service.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends immediately. Sections 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18 will survive termination. Requests to delete personal information will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last Updated” date above. If we make a material change, we will provide reasonable advance notice through the Service, by email, or by other reasonable means before the change takes effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the updated Terms constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the Service.

Material changes to Section 15 (Binding Arbitration and Class-Action Waiver) will not apply retroactively to Disputes of which the parties had actual notice before the change took effect.

These Terms, together with any applicable order form and our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and law.tools regarding the Service. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent; any purported assignment in violation of this section is void. law.tools may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganization, or sale of assets. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, fiduciary, or agency relationship.

Contact Information

Email: legal@law.tools