The agreement, in language you can hold us to.

One

What the service is

Lexicera is a hosted practice platform for litigation firms: intake, matter and document management, deadline tracking, discovery and production work, drafting assistance, billing, and a portal your clients sign in to. What it does today, in full and with each capability's deliberate limits beside it, is on the capabilities page; that page is generated from the same record the software is built against, so it describes what exists rather than what is intended.

We provide the service as a subscription. We may improve it, and we may change how a part of it works; we will not remove a capability you are relying on without telling you first.

Two

Your account, and what rests with you

You are a law firm and the professional judgment stays yours. Specifically:

• The lawyering. Every deadline the platform computes is a suggestion until an attorney at your firm confirms it, and anything a model drafts is marked review-required until an attorney marks it reviewed. Those are ceilings in the software, not settings — but they only work because a person is on the other end of them.
• The file. What goes into a matter, who at your firm may see it, when a walled matter is walled, and what your client is told, are yours to decide.
• The accounts. You are responsible for who at your firm has one, for keeping the second factor on it, and for telling us when someone leaves.
• Your obligations to your own clients — engagement, confidentiality, conflicts, fee agreements and the rules of professional conduct you practise under. Nothing in this platform discharges any of them.

Three

Acceptable use

Use it to run your practice. What is out of bounds is short and unsurprising: putting material in that you have no right to hold; using it to break the law or to harass someone; attempting to reach another firm's tenant, or ours; probing, overloading or reverse-engineering the service; reselling access to it; or using the messaging described below for anything other than what it is for.

We may suspend an account that is doing one of those things, and we will say which one. Suspension for any other reason gets a conversation first.

Four

Fees and billing

There is a monthly platform fee, storage past what the fee includes, and metered usage — the model work, ingestion, and per-item charges for a handful of specific jobs. Every figure, including what the model work actually costs, is published on the pricing page, and that page is the authority: it is rendered from the one file in the software where a price may be written down, so a rate quoted anywhere else is wrong by construction.

Fees are billed monthly in arrears and are due on receipt. Metered charges appear itemized rather than folded into a total. If a price changes we tell you before the period it applies to. Taxes, where they apply, are on top.

We are not a bank and we hold no money belonging to your clients. When your client pays a bill, your firm is the merchant of record for that payment; our fee for the transaction is billed to you and is never taken out of what your client paid.

Five

Text messages to your clients

The platform can text a client of yours to say you have issued them an invoice, with the secure link to view and pay it. Those texts are LEXICERA's: they are sent by us, from our own number and under our own carrier registration, and each begins "LEXICERA:" with your firm named as the subject of the notice. You cannot compose, schedule or address a message. Texting is optional and it is off until you ask us to switch it on. There is no self-service control: you ask, we enable it for your firm, and by asking you confirm three things:

• You understand that a mobile number in your client records does not sign that client up for texts. Only the client can opt in, themselves, on a LEXICERA page — the client portal, the page where they sign an engagement letter, or an invoice payment page. You cannot opt a client in, and you will not ask us to.
• You will not tell a client, or suggest, that agreeing to texts is required to engage you, sign a letter or pay a bill. The opt-in is optional wherever it is offered.
• You will handle a client who asks you directly to stop — by taking the number off their record, or telling us — as well as one who replies STOP to the message.

What we do in return is fixed and narrow. Messages go only to your clients who have opted in, and only about an invoice — only for the first notice, since payment reminders are never texted. The first text a number receives after its holder opts in is a confirmation carrying the disclosures the carriers require, sent on its own before any invoice text. Every message carries Reply STOP to opt out., composed by the software rather than typed by anyone. STOP, HELP and START are honoured by the messaging carrier at the number itself, which means an opt-out takes effect whatever we do next, and we record it so that client is never queued again. The messaging programme page sets out both messages in full.

Message frequency varies with your billing activity. Message and data rates may apply, from the recipient's own mobile carrier. Carriers do not guarantee delivery of any individual message, and neither can we — which is why a text is only ever sent alongside the emailed invoice and never instead of it. Texts are metered like any other usage; the rate is on the pricing page. The full detail of what is sent and where a number goes is in the privacy policy.

Six

Your data, and getting it back

Your case material is yours. We hold it to run the service and act on your instructions about it; we do not sell it, and we do not use one firm's material to build anything another firm benefits from. You can export a complete matter at any time, and closing your account starts with an export rather than ending with one.

The privacy policy sets out what is collected, which vendors process it, and how long each thing is kept. It is part of these terms.

Seven

What this platform does not promise

The sentence at the foot of every page on this site is the honest one and it is repeated here because it is the term that matters most: Lexicera is not a substitute for a lawyer's judgment, and it is designed on the assumption that it never will be. It reads, drafts, computes and flags. It does not advise, it does not decide, and nothing it produces is legal advice to you or to your client.

We will run the service with reasonable skill and care, keep it available, and tell you when something has gone wrong rather than waiting to be asked. What we will not do is warrant that the software is free of defects, that a model's output is correct, or that a computed date is the right one — which is precisely why an attorney has to confirm it.

Limitation of liability. Neither side is liable to the other for indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or for lost profits. Our total liability to you for any claim arising out of these terms is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose. That limit does not apply to our own fraud or willful misconduct, and it does not apply to anything the law does not permit us to limit.

Eight

Ending it

You can stop at any time, effective at the end of the period you have paid for. We can stop for a material breach you have not fixed after being told about it, or for the conduct listed under acceptable use. Either way you get your export first — an account that ends without your file in your hands is not an outcome we are willing to produce.

Nine

Governing law, and changes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and any dispute belongs in the state or federal courts sitting in Florida.

We may change these terms. When we do, the effective date at the top changes and we tell you before the new version applies to you; continuing to use the platform after that date is acceptance of it. If a provision here turns out to be unenforceable, the rest stands.

Contact

Reaching us about this

LEXICERA LLC, 153 Tate Lane, Saint Johns, FL 32259 — brad@lexicera.com.

The privacy policy →