Firmbinder LLC

Terms of Use and End-User License Agreement

Effective October 8, 2026 · Version 2026-10-08

IMPORTANT NOTICE: SECTION 11 CONTAINS AN ARBITRATION CLAUSE AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER. SECTION 12 EXEMPTS NORTH CAROLINA CONSUMERS USING THE DOCUMENT TOOLS. PLEASE READ THESE PROVISIONS CAREFULLY.

1. Acceptance of Terms and Nature of Service

Welcome to CourtBriefly. By registering an account, accessing, or using the software-as-a-service platform, modules, and affiliated websites (collectively, the "Service") provided by Firmbinder LLC, 127 W Hargett St Ste 301 PMB 119, Raleigh, NC 27601 ("Company," "we," "us," or "our"), you ("User," "you") agree to be bound by these Terms of Use ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use the Service.

2. No Legal Advice (Unauthorized Practice of Law Disclaimer)

2.1 Neutral Conduit. CourtBriefly is a technology platform, not a law firm. The Service provides administrative tools, organizational frameworks, and general legal information to assist self-represented ("pro se") litigants and legal professionals. WE DO NOT PROVIDE LEGAL ADVICE, LEGAL STRATEGY, OR LEGAL REPRESENTATION.

2.2 Self-Help Exemption. The Service will not apply the law to your specific facts, predict court outcomes, or tell you what legal arguments to make. Any templates provided (such as an FRE 902 certification declaration) are blank, general forms that you must independently evaluate and complete. Your use of the Service does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you require legal advice, you must consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.

3. Strict Data Attestation and Lawful Access (CFAA & SCA Compliance)

To protect against computer trespass and unauthorized access, you must strictly adhere to the following when using the Evidence Helper and Message Extractor modules:

3.1 The "Own-Account" Rule. You affirmatively represent, warrant, and attest that you are the lawful owner of, or possess explicit, documented legal authority to access, every device, cloud account, and communication archive you upload into the Service.

3.2 Prohibited Access. You are strictly prohibited from using the Service to process data obtained via unauthorized access to a spouse's, ex-partner's, or third-party's device, or a shared family account or child's device to which you do not have absolute legal access rights. Violations of this provision may subject you to severe criminal and civil liability under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030) and applicable state laws. We reserve the right to instantly terminate your account if unauthorized access is suspected.

4. Prohibition on Illegal Recording and Wiretapping

4.1 No Live Interception. You are strictly prohibited from using the Service to secretly intercept, capture, or record real-time, multi-party communications in violation of the federal Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 2511) or applicable state all-party consent laws.

4.2 Mediation Confidentiality. You acknowledge that court-ordered mediations and settlement conferences are strictly confidential by state law (e.g., NC G.S. § 50-13.1). You agree not to use the Service (including the Mediation Copilot) to transcribe, record, or otherwise violate the legal confidentiality of any mediation, hearing, or legal proceeding without the express written permission of the court or mediator.

5. Artificial Intelligence Limitations

The Service utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to extract text, analyze tone, and simulate conversational scenarios (e.g., "Comms Guard").

5.1 Human-in-the-Loop. AI outputs can hallucinate or produce inaccurate, incomplete, or out-of-context information. You agree to independently review, verify, and approve all AI-generated text, tags, and suggestions before relying on them or submitting them in legal proceedings.

5.2 Behavioral Coaching Only. AI suggestions provide behavioral communication feedback (e.g., de-escalation tone and clarity). The AI is not a legal strategist and cannot determine if a statement is "admissible" or "helpful" to your legal case.

5.3 Your review and signature. You select your template and decide what to say. Staff do not review or edit your document or provide advice about it. Automated checks may flag unfinished fields, unsupported statements, citations, or personal identifiers; these checks cannot guarantee accuracy, completeness, or compliance with a court's rules. Before signing or exporting a final document, you must review the current revision and expressly attest to the statements shown. A signature is applied only after your explicit Sign action. Typed, drawn, or uploaded signatures may not satisfy every court's requirements; check those requirements yourself. Changes to the document require renewed review and signing.

5.4 Document audit records. We record your user and document identifiers, action and timestamp, document revision and exported-file hashes, a snapshot of the signed or exported document and signature, the attestation text shown, applicable terms version, and available IP address and browser information when you sign or export. We also record terms acceptance, residence state, version, time, and a copy and hash of the accepted terms. These records document your actions; they do not establish that a court accepts the document or its signature.

6. Domestic Violence Safety, Privacy, and Metadata

6.1 Location Data Removal. To protect your physical safety, the Service removes location metadata (GPS coordinates and location tags) from photos (JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, AVIF, WebP and TIFF) and from the metadata of MP4, MOV, M4V and 3GP videos in everything that leaves your account to someone else or goes into a generated package: files that collaborators, attorneys and other people you invite view or download; release packages; exhibit and court packets, hearing binders, court documents exported with exhibits, and the exhibit PDFs in a Case Closed bundle; and photos and videos sent to our AI and transcription providers to extract text. The original files you upload are stored unchanged, and your own downloads of your originals (including the originals in your Case Bundle) are not changed, because their SHA-256 fingerprints depend on the exact bytes. A copy with location removed is a different file with a different fingerprint, and our download manifests show both. The Service does not change location that is visible in the picture itself, location inside documents such as PDFs or word-processing files, GPS tracks recorded inside a video's own data (for example by dashcams, drones or action cameras), or other file types. You are responsible for any original files you choose to download and share yourself.

6.2 Address Confidentiality. If you are enrolled in a state Address Confidentiality Program (ACP), you are not required to provide a residential physical address for billing or account registration purposes.

7. Subscriptions, Cancellations, and "Dormant Free Read Access"

7.1 Auto-Renewal. Paid subscriptions are billed in advance. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of each billing cycle unless canceled.

7.2 Online Cancellation. You may cancel your subscription at any time online in Account > Billing (Cancel, then Confirm). You never need to call or email us to cancel. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle. Free trials are covered by Section 7A.

7.3 Dormant Free Read Access. If you cancel a paid subscription, or a free trial ends without one, CourtBriefly contractually guarantees that your account will transition to a "Dormant Free Tier." Nothing you saved is deleted. You will retain read access to your records and can download the complete Case Bundle for any case you own (your original files, a manifest with each file's SHA-256 fingerprint, and your records) without further payment, at any time, subject to our standard data retention limits. Free-tier limits then apply to new uploads, exports and AI features. A case you close with a Case Closed purchase stays read-only, and readable and downloadable without further payment, for as long as your account exists.

7.4 Court Document Package. Where available, the $49 one-time package applies to one selected document and includes unlimited saved revisions and final packet export without a watermark. AI drafting operations use your separate allowance or purchased AI credits. These document features are included with an active Full Suite subscription where available. The package does not include legal advice, staff document review, or court filing. State availability and template-review requirements apply.

7.5 Package refunds. Request a full Court Document Package refund in Account > Billing within 14 days of payment, without giving a reason. Refund requests end the package entitlement; saved documents remain in your account. Contact Help & complaints if the refund cannot be processed or you need assistance. Your payment provider determines when the refund appears on your statement.

7A. Free Trial and Automatic Renewal

7A.1 The free trial. A new account may start one free trial of the Full Suite plan. The trial length, the price after the trial, the billing interval (monthly or yearly) and the date of the first charge are shown next to the button that starts the trial, and again on the payment page, before you enter a payment card. A payment card is required to start the trial. During the trial you can use the Full Suite tools except Mediation Coach, with the number of AI operations shown when you start, and exports made during the trial are marked TRIAL. The free plan never requires a payment card.

7A.2 Automatic conversion and renewal. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, the trial converts automatically into a paid Full Suite subscription, and your card is charged the price shown on the first-charge date shown when you started the trial. The subscription then renews automatically at that price every month or every year, as you chose, until you cancel. We will tell you before any price change takes effect.

7A.3 Reminders. We email you 3 days and 1 day before the first charge, and about 30 days before each yearly renewal, with a link to cancel. These billing notices are sent even if you turn off other emails.

7A.4 How to cancel. Cancel online at any time in Account > Billing (Cancel, then Confirm), or in the billing portal linked there. If you cancel during the trial, you will not be charged, and you can keep using the trial until it ends. If you cancel a paid subscription, it will not renew; you keep access until the end of the period you paid for, and partial periods are not refunded except under Section 7A.5. Your saved records are not deleted when you cancel; Section 7.3 applies.

7A.5 Refund of the first charge. If you forget to cancel a trial, you may request a full refund of the first charge after the trial in Account > Billing within 7 days of that charge, without giving a reason. The refund also cancels the subscription immediately. Your payment provider determines when the refund appears on your statement.

7A.6 One trial per account. Accounts that already had a free trial or a subscription, and accounts created before October 8, 2026, can subscribe directly but cannot start a new free trial. We may cancel a duplicate trial before any charge is made. Nobody who signed up earlier is moved onto a trial or charged without starting a subscription themselves.

7A.7 Statement name and receipts. Charges appear on your card statement as FIRMBINDER. We email a receipt after the first charge.

7A.8 Your consent record. When you start a trial or a subscription, we record the time, these Terms' version, the price, billing interval and first-charge date, and the exact renewal terms shown to you (with a cryptographic hash of that text), together with your IP address and browser information when available, to document your consent.

8. Subpoenas and Legal Process (DV Exception Policy)

8.1 Stored Communications Act. We process and store your communications as a neutral electronic communications service provider. We will formally object to civil subpoenas seeking the disclosure of your substantive content without your explicit consent or a valid court order, requiring the requesting party to seek the data directly from you via legal discovery.

8.2 Legal Holds. Upon receipt of valid legal process regarding your account, we reserve the right to place a "Legal Hold" on your data, which overrides user-initiated deletion requests to prevent the spoliation of evidence.

8.3 DV-Aware Notification. Our standard policy is to notify you if we receive legal process seeking your data. However, we reserve the right to withhold notification if doing so is prohibited by a court order (e.g., a gag order), or if we determine, in our sole discretion, that the requesting party is an alleged abuser and notification creates an articulable risk of physical harm to you or your children.

9. Attorney Accounts and Privilege

You may invite a licensed attorney to view your Case Bundle. We act solely as a secure conduit. Granting an attorney access does not establish an attorney-client relationship between you and that attorney unless you have a separate engagement agreement. While attorney annotations are stored in a segregated database layer to support work-product privilege, you are responsible for managing access, and we do not guarantee that a court will uphold your claims of privilege.

10. Limitation of Liability and Indemnification

North Carolina consumers using the Document Tools: see Section 12, which overrides this Section for you.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FIRMBINDER LLC SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF CUSTODY, ADVERSE COURT OUTCOMES, LOSS OF ASSETS, COURT SANCTIONS, OR EMOTIONAL DISTRESS ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE. You agree to fully indemnify and hold harmless Firmbinder LLC from any claims, criminal charges, or civil lawsuits arising from your unauthorized access to third-party data or illegal interception of communications.

11. Dispute Resolution

North Carolina consumers using the Document Tools: see Section 12, which overrides this Section for you.

Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of these Terms shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA). YOU EXPRESSLY WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OR CLASS-WIDE ARBITRATION.

12. North Carolina Consumer Addendum

12.1 Scope. This Section 12 applies to consumers who reside in North Carolina and use the document-generation features of the Service (the "Document Tools"). Where this Section conflicts with any other Section of these Terms, this Section controls for those consumers.

12.2 Nature of the Document Tools. The Document Tools are interactive software that generates a document based on your answers and instructions. The forms and templates are not a substitute for the advice or services of an attorney. CourtBriefly is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

12.3 Attorney review of templates. A template is represented as attorney-reviewed only when the Service marks it as reviewed by a licensed attorney and shows the review date. We keep the reviewing attorney's name and address on file and will provide them to you on written request to the address in Section 12.7.

12.4 Preview before purchase. You may view each blank template, and the final completed document, before finalizing any purchase of that document.

12.5 No limitation of liability; no arbitration. For North Carolina consumers using the Document Tools, Section 10 (Limitation of Liability) and Section 11 (Dispute Resolution) do not apply. Firmbinder LLC does not disclaim any warranties or liability, and does not limit the recovery of damages or other remedies available to you, in connection with the Document Tools. Any dispute between you and Firmbinder LLC concerning the Document Tools is governed by North Carolina law, and you are not required to agree to jurisdiction or venue in any state other than North Carolina.

12.6 Consumer satisfaction process. If you are dissatisfied with the Document Tools, contact us at the address in Section 12.7 with your account email and a description of the concern. We will acknowledge within five business days. Court Document Package purchases are refundable in full within 14 days of payment on request through Account > Billing. Any concern involving the unauthorized practice of law will be referred to the North Carolina State Bar.

12.7 Provider identity. The Document Tools are provided by Firmbinder LLC. Email: support@firmbinder.com. Phone: (919) 371-8096. Mailing and business address: Firmbinder LLC, 127 W Hargett St Ste 301 PMB 119, Raleigh, NC 27601.

12.8 Free trials and automatic renewal. Section 7A (free trial, automatic renewal, reminders, online cancellation and the first-charge refund) applies to North Carolina consumers. Nothing in Section 7A limits Section 12.5 or any right or remedy you have under North Carolina law.

CourtBriefly is a brand of Firmbinder LLC. Questions about these Terms? Email support@firmbinder.com.