Trellis

What to ask before you buy

1. Which states and courts are actually covered, and how current is the data?
2. What does the analytics feature rest on, and how far back does the data go?
3. Where is my firm's data stored, and is it separated from other customers?
4. What does the pricing page include, and what sits outside it?

Limits in the record

• Coverage is state trial courts, so the record does not treat it as a general research platform.
• The checked pages state SOC 2 Type II certification but do not publish a data-location or training statement.
• The pricing page could not be read directly during this check, so the record notes only that a pricing page exists.

How it sits in Legal research

This competes with the large research platforms on state trial court depth rather than on breadth. A firm that needs appellate and secondary sources still needs one of the larger platforms alongside it.

Reading the vendor’s wording

The vendor states SOC 2 Type II certification, which is a process statement about how the vendor runs its systems. The checked pages do not publish a confidentiality, training, or data-location statement, so those remain open questions for a firm uploading its own work product.

How to evaluate it in a trial

1. Check whether the states you actually litigate in are covered before evaluating anything else.
2. Search a judge or matter you already know and verify the analytics against your own understanding.
3. Ask how current the trial court data is, since filing coverage varies by court.
4. Request the data-location and retention position in writing.

What adopting it costs

The switching cost is low, because research is not a system of record. Saved research and any analytics work product do not transfer, so a firm leaving should export what it wants to keep.

Closest alternative

vLex Vincent AI — The closest alternative. Both add research depth beyond the two dominant platforms; this one focuses on state trial courts while vLex covers a broader international corpus.