CourtBriefly

Privacy Policy

Effective October 14, 2026.

This Privacy Policy explains how Firmbinder LLC ("Firmbinder," "we," "us") collects, uses, shares, and protects information in connection with CourtBriefly — our website at courtbriefly.com and our application at app.courtbriefly.com (together, the "Service"). Privacy is not a footnote for this product: our users store evidence, message archives, and matter materials with us, often in situations where privacy is a safety issue. We have written this policy to say plainly what we do.

CourtBriefly is self-help software, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice.

1. Information we collect

Information you provide

  • Account & identity: your email address, an optional display name, and your password. Passwords are hashed with Argon2id — we never store or have access to your plaintext password.
  • Matter content you submit: files you upload (images, documents, audio, and video), evidence descriptions, tags, notes, message archives you import, to-dos, timelines, court-case and hearing details, and contacts you add. This content frequently includes other people's words, images, and personal information, and can include sensitive information. We process it solely to provide the Service to you.
  • Document preparation and signatures: document drafts and revisions, court and residence state, typed signer name or drawn/uploaded signature image, signing preferences, and your confirmations about facts, sources, citations, and personal identifiers. Signatures are applied only when you expressly choose Sign.
  • Communications: messages you send us (for example, support requests).
  • Setup chat: when you set up an account, you can answer questions in a setup chat. Unlike your private assistant, our team may read setup chats to set up your account and improve the product. We remove phone numbers, email addresses and street addresses automatically. Please don't include names or other sensitive details. Setup chats are deleted with your account.
  • Court links for your county: we store the state and county you choose (and city, if you enter one) so we can show official court links and saved copies of public court documents for that county.
  • Product questions and AI-answer ratings: your answers to one-tap product questions and your thumbs up/down ratings on AI answers (with any reason or comment you add) are stored with your account, used to improve the product, and deleted or anonymized when you close your account.
  • Emails you ask for: if you ask us to email you a guide or tell you when the apps launch, we store your email address and the page you came from, send what you asked for plus up to three related emails, and stop when you unsubscribe. If you also tick the optional box for product updates and tips, we may send those too (see “Email from us” below).
  • Your email choices: which optional emails you agreed to or turned off, and when and how you did it (for example the signup notice or box, your choice during setup, your settings, or an unsubscribe link), so we can honor your choices and show that we did.

Information collected automatically

  • Service & security logs: IP address, timestamps, access logs, and an audit trail of actions taken on your matter.
  • Consent and document audit records: user/document identifiers, signing and export timestamps, document revision and exported-file hashes, snapshots of signed/exported content and signatures, the attestation wording shown, terms version, and available IP address and browser user-agent information. Terms acceptance records include the accepted version and wording, content hash, residence state, jurisdiction variant, timestamp, and available IP/browser information. We use these records to operate the document workflow, document your explicit choices, and resolve complaints or disputes; automated checks do not certify the document's legal sufficiency.
  • Support, refunds, and review-information requests: ticket and purchase identifiers, complaint category and message, status and referral records, refund request/payment status and dates, and requests for template-reviewing attorney information. Staff do not review or edit your court documents through support.
  • Billing data: handled by our payment processor, Stripe. We store your subscription/plan status, a Stripe customer identifier, purchase records, and your AI-usage ledger. We do not store full payment card numbers.
  • First-party usage analytics: on courtbriefly.com and in the application, our own analytics code (not a third party’s) records the pages you view, how long each page is open and in use and how far down you scroll it, when a visit starts and ends, and product events such as clicking a button we have labeled (for example sign-up, upgrade or starting checkout), repeated or unresponsive clicks on such elements, and how far you get through our forms, identified only by the field’s name (such as “email”), never by what you enter. In the application it also records technical problems you run into: the type of a page error with a shortened message from which email addresses, numbers and quoted text are removed, the name and line of our own script file, and, for requests to our servers that fail or are slow, the kind of request, its address with record identifiers removed, the status code and how long it took. Each record contains the page address with query strings and record identifiers removed, the site that linked you, campaign parameters on our own links (ref and utm), device type, browser and operating-system family, your browser’s time-zone setting, a random visitor identifier stored in a first-party cookie (cc_vid), a random session identifier, and, when you are signed in, your account identifier. To measure time in use we note that you clicked, tapped, scrolled or pressed a key; we never record which key or what you typed. These records do not include your IP address, your full browser user-agent string, page titles, the text on the page or on buttons, anything you type, keystrokes, screen or session recordings, or any case content, evidence, messages, or documents, and we do not use device fingerprinting (such as canvas, audio, font or hardware probing). We use them to learn which pages and referral sources lead to sign-ups and purchases, where people get stuck, and what to fix. Authorized staff may review the records linked to one account or browser to understand a problem (for example, where a sign-up or checkout failed). They are not sold, not shared with advertisers, and not used to build advertising profiles.
  • Marketing-site analytics (Google): on courtbriefly.com we also use Google Analytics, which collects pages viewed, approximate (IP-based) location, device/browser details, referring site, and analytics cookie identifiers. The signed-in application does not run Google Analytics or any third-party analytics, advertising, or session-recording tools.
  • How you found the application: when you open app.courtbriefly.com we store a first-party record of the site that linked you, the page you opened, and the campaign parameters on our own link (ref and utm). We do not receive the words you typed into a search engine. This record is not sold.

2. How we use information

  • To provide and operate the Service: storage, organization, search, exhibit/court-ready exports, and — where you choose to use them — AI-assisted features such as text extraction, message review, communication drafting, and coaching.
  • To authenticate you and keep your account secure.
  • To process payments and manage subscriptions and credits.
  • To send transactional email (verification, password reset, receipts, trial and billing notices, and account/security alerts) through our email provider.
  • To send the optional emails you choose: product updates, tips, and occasional feedback questions (see “Email from us” below).
  • To understand and improve our website and the Service through analytics — for example, which pages and referral sources lead to sign-ups and purchases, where people get stuck, and which errors or slow pages to fix.
  • To comply with law and enforce our terms.

Email from us.

  • Account email (verification, password resets, security alerts, receipts, trial and billing notices) goes out while you have an account. It is not marketing.
  • Optional email comes in three kinds you control separately: product updates and new features; tips and getting started (including one check-in if you haven’t been back in a while); and surveys and feedback requests. If you opened your account on or after October 14, 2026, the signup page tells you we’ll send them, and if you tell us during setup that you live in the United States, we may send them once you confirm your email address, until you turn them off. During setup you can pick discreet emails or account emails only, and you can turn them off at any time. Accounts opened from October 9 to October 13, 2026 get them only if they ticked the optional box at signup or turned them on later in settings. If you opened your account on or before October 8, 2026 and told us you live in the United States, we may send them until you turn them off. Without your own choice, we don’t send them to accounts in discreet mode, accounts that turned email notifications off, or accounts outside the United States (or that haven’t told us where they live), unless you bought something from us in the last two years.
  • Stopping or choosing: every optional email has a one-click unsubscribe link that works without signing in, and a link to choose which kinds you get. You can also use My account → Notifications → Email preferences. A change applies to the very next email.
  • Discreet emails: you can have our emails come from “Firmbinder” with a plain subject line. Subject lines and previews of optional emails never name the topic (for example custody, court or a protective order), and no email contains details from your case.
  • No tracking pixels: we don’t put tracking pixels in our emails, and we tell our email provider not to track opens or clicks for our recipients. Links in optional emails carry campaign tags (utm) so our own first-party analytics, described above, can count visits that came from an email. Those visits follow the same analytics rules, including Global Privacy Control.
  • Provider: optional and account email are delivered by our email provider (section 4). It receives your email address and the email we send you, only to deliver it.

What we do not do: we do not sell your personal information; we do not use your matter content for advertising; and we do not permit our AI providers to use your content to train their models.

3. AI, transcription, and voice features

Some features use third-party AI providers as our service providers. They process only the content you submit to that feature, only to return a result to you, and under contracts that prohibit using your content to train their models:

  • AI text & image features (the matter assistant, evidence text extraction, message analysis, communication drafting, and coaching phrasing) and the setup chat send the relevant content you submit to xAI to generate the output. To find your county's official court pages, we send xAI only the state and county you chose.
  • Transcription: when you transcribe an audio or video file, that media is sent to AssemblyAI to produce a transcript.
  • Spoken coaching audio: where real-time coaching is available, suggested phrasing text may be sent to ElevenLabs to generate spoken audio.

AI output is a draft for your review. It can be wrong, and nothing becomes part of your record until you confirm it.

4. Service providers we share data with

We share information only with vendors that process it on our behalf to run the Service, under contracts that limit their use of it:

  • Google Cloud (Google LLC) — US-region cloud hosting, database, file storage, and secret management.
  • Stripe, Inc. — payment processing and subscription billing.
  • Brevo (Sendinblue SAS) — delivery of account email, the emails you ask for, and the optional emails you choose to receive. Twilio SendGrid may be used as a backup email provider.
  • xAI — AI text and image features, the setup chat, and searches for official court pages.
  • AssemblyAI, Inc. — audio/video transcription.
  • ElevenLabs Inc. — text-to-speech for coaching audio.
  • Google Analytics (Google LLC) — usage analytics on our marketing website only.
  • Google Fonts (Google LLC) — web-font delivery on our marketing website, which receives your IP address when fonts load.

We may also share information with people you invite to your matter (such as a co-counsel, client, or advocate), scoped to that matter; to comply with legal process (see below); to protect rights and safety; and as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you.

5. Cookies and analytics choices

The signed-in application uses strictly necessary cookies (for your login session) and one first-party analytics cookie, cc_vid, which holds only a random identifier. It is shared between courtbriefly.com and app.courtbriefly.com so that a visit and a later sign-up can be connected, and it expires 13 months after your last visit. We do not use advertising cookies. Our marketing website also uses Google Analytics cookies (such as _ga) to measure aggregate usage. The application and this site also keep a random session identifier in your browser’s local storage (cc_sid); a new one starts after 30 minutes without activity.

Our first-party analytics does not run when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, or when you block cookies. You can opt out of Google Analytics by blocking cookies in your browser or by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. Because there is no common standard for "Do Not Track" browser signals, our sites do not currently respond to them; GPC and the opt-out methods above remain effective.

6. Legal process and subpoenas

Because we host evidence and message archives, we may receive legal demands — including from opposing parties in our users' matters. We disclose data only when we believe we are legally required to, and we attempt to notify you before doing so where we are lawfully permitted, so you have the opportunity to object or seek to quash. We will never market your records as "private from the court": records you create are generally discoverable from you regardless of where they are stored.

7. Retention, deletion, and export

  • You can export your complete matter bundle at any time, including court-ready exports.
  • You control deletion. When you delete an item (evidence, a document, imported messages) and confirm, it is removed at once, and its stored original and the files made from it (image previews, PDFs generated from a document, and an imported message file once none of its messages remain) are removed from our file storage, usually within an hour (we keep retrying if storage is briefly unavailable). If the identical file is still used elsewhere, for example the same photo added twice, the one stored copy stays for that use. If we have placed a legal hold under our Terms of Use (§8.2), deleting waits until the hold is released.
  • First-party usage analytics records are deleted automatically after 25 months. When you close your account, we remove your account identifier from them.
  • Your email choices and the record of how you made them are kept while you have an account, and deleted when your account is closed. If you unsubscribe from emails you asked for on our website, we keep your address only so we never email it again.
  • When you close your account, we delete your matter content within 30 days, except where we must retain limited records longer to meet legal, tax, or accounting obligations or to resolve disputes. Backups are purged on a rolling schedule.

8. Security

  • Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest, on US-region infrastructure only.
  • Passwords are hashed with Argon2id; we cannot see them.
  • Sessions end after 3 days without activity by default, and after 30 days at most even when you are active. You can choose a shorter automatic sign-out (15 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours) under Account → Security, and sign out every session at once. Turning two-factor sign-in on or off and signing out every session require your password, and we email you after security changes (password changed, two-factor sign-in turned on or off, every session signed out, automatic sign-out changed). Notification content is conservative by default — no revealing subject lines.
  • Photo and video location. Phone photos and videos often record where they were taken. We store your original files exactly as you uploaded them, because their SHA-256 fingerprints show they haven’t changed, and we never display that location. Whenever a file leaves your account to someone else or goes into a generated package, we remove the location metadata (GPS coordinates and location tags) from photos (JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, AVIF, WebP, TIFF) and from MP4, MOV, M4V and 3GP videos. That covers files your collaborators or attorney view or download, release packages, exhibit and court packets, hearing binders, court documents exported with exhibits, Case Closed exhibit PDFs, and photos and videos we send to our AI and transcription providers to extract text. Your own downloads of your originals, including your Case Bundle, are not changed. We don’t change location that is visible in a picture, location inside documents such as PDFs, or GPS tracks recorded inside a video’s own data.
  • Employee access to matter content is limited and occurs only through documented, consent-based support workflows.
  • No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information using industry-standard safeguards.

9. Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or obtain a portable copy of your personal information. To exercise these rights, email us at privacy@firmbinder.com. We will verify your request and respond as required by law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA). In the past 12 months we have collected these categories of personal information: identifiers (e.g., email, IP address); customer records; commercial information (purchases); internet/network activity (analytics and logs); approximate geolocation (IP-based); audio, electronic, and visual information (media you upload); and sensitive personal information (your account log-in credentials, and any sensitive details contained in matter content you choose to submit). We collect this from you, your device, and our service providers, for the purposes described above. We do not sell your personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We use sensitive personal information only to provide the Service you requested — a purpose for which the right to limit use does not apply. You may exercise the rights to know, delete, and correct, and you may use an authorized agent. Under California's "Shine the Light" law, we do not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing.

10. Children's privacy

The Service is intended for adults (18 or older). We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children. If matter content you submit involves minors, we process that content on your behalf as described above.

11. International users

We operate in the United States and store data on US-region infrastructure. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be processed in the United States. Our email provider, Brevo, may process your email address and the emails we send you in the European Union.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Effective" date above and, for material changes, take reasonable steps to notify you.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy or your information? Email privacy@firmbinder.com. General support: support@firmbinder.com. CourtBriefly is operated by Firmbinder LLC.