Terms of Service

1. About CourtCraft Advocate

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the CourtCraft Advocate platform, website, and services (collectively, the "Service") operated by CourtCraft Advocate Ltd ("CourtCraft", "we", "us").

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, you must not use the Service.

CourtCraft Advocate is designed to assist litigants in person (LIPs) and self-representing parties in England and Wales family court proceedings. Our McKenzie Friend support services are provided by lay advisers and are not regulated legal services.

2. Eligibility

To use the Service, you must:

• Be at least 18 years of age.
• Be a resident of the United Kingdom or be involved in proceedings in the courts of England and Wales.
• Have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract.
• Not be prohibited from using the Service under any applicable law.

3. Account Registration

You must register for an account to access most features of the Service. You agree to:

• Provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration.
• Maintain and promptly update your account information.
• Keep your password confidential and not share it with any third party.
• Notify us immediately at support@courtcraftadvocate.com if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.
• Accept responsibility for all activity that occurs under your account.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that provide false information or violate these Terms.

4. Subscription Plans and Payment

Access to certain features requires a paid subscription. By subscribing, you agree to the following:

• Subscription fees are charged in advance on a monthly or annual basis as selected.
• Payments are processed securely by Stripe. By providing payment details, you authorise us to charge the applicable fees.
• Subscriptions automatically renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the renewal date.
• You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; no partial refunds are issued for unused time.
• We reserve the right to change subscription prices with 30 days' notice. Continued use after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the new pricing.

Refund Policy: Subscription fees are non-refundable except where required by applicable law. This does not affect your statutory rights as a consumer under UK law.

5. McKenzie Friend Services

CourtCraft Advocate facilitates the booking of McKenzie Friend lay support sessions. You acknowledge and agree that:

• McKenzie Friends are lay advisers, not solicitors or barristers, and are not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) or the Bar Standards Board (BSB).
• A McKenzie Friend may assist you in court by taking notes, quietly giving advice, and helping you organise documents, but may not address the court on your behalf unless the court grants specific permission.
• The right to have a McKenzie Friend is subject to the court's discretion. We cannot guarantee that any court will permit a McKenzie Friend to attend or assist.
• Our McKenzie Friend services do not constitute legal representation or legal advice.
• Session fees are as displayed at the time of booking and are non-refundable except where a session is cancelled by us with less than 24 hours' notice.

6. AI-Assisted Features

The Service includes AI-assisted tools for document drafting and case preparation. You acknowledge that:

• AI-generated content is provided as a starting point only and must be reviewed, verified, and adapted by you before use.
• AI tools do not provide legal advice and may produce inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated information.
• You are solely responsible for the accuracy and appropriateness of any documents you submit to a court or other party.
• You must not submit AI-generated content to a court without first reviewing it and satisfying yourself that it is accurate and appropriate.
• Our AI system prompts, model configurations, and proprietary instructions are stored exclusively server-side and constitute confidential trade secrets of CourtCraft Advocate Ltd. You have no right to access, extract, reproduce, or reverse-engineer these prompts or configurations.
• Prompts and inputs you provide to AI features may be processed by third-party AI providers (currently Anthropic and OpenAI) subject to their terms of service.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Violate any applicable law or regulation, including the Family Procedure Rules 2010 or any court order.
• Harass, intimidate, or harm any other person.
• Upload or transmit malicious code, viruses, or harmful content.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Service or its infrastructure.
• Scrape, crawl, spider, copy, harvest, or redistribute content from the Service without our prior written permission. This prohibition applies to all automated tools, bots, scripts, and AI training pipelines.
• Use the Service to provide legal services to third parties without appropriate authorisation.
• Misrepresent your identity or your relationship to any proceedings.
• Use the Service in any way that could bring CourtCraft Advocate into disrepute.

8. Intellectual Property Rights

The names "CourtCraft Advocate™", "Prepare. Represent. Prevail.™", and all associated logos and branding are registered trade marks (or trade marks pending registration) of CourtCraft Advocate Ltd. Unauthorised use of these trade marks is strictly prohibited and may constitute trade mark infringement and/or passing off.

Prohibited Acts — You must not:

• Reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, algorithms, AI prompts, or proprietary methodologies of the Service.
• Copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, display, or create derivative works from any part of the Service without our prior written consent.
• Remove, alter, or obscure any copyright notice, trade mark notice, or other proprietary rights notice from any part of the Service or any exported document.
• Use any part of the Service's content, templates, or AI outputs to train, fine-tune, or develop any competing AI model or legal technology product.
• Frame, mirror, or embed any part of the Service on any other website or application without our written consent.
• Systematically extract data from the Service for commercial purposes or to build a competing product or service.

Your Content: You retain ownership of any case data, notes, and documents you create using the Service. By using the Service, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store and process your content solely to provide the Service to you. We do not use your case data to train AI models.

Exported Documents: All documents, reports, and PDFs exported from the Service carry a CourtCraft Advocate™ copyright watermark. You may use exported documents for your own legal proceedings but may not redistribute, sell, or publish them without our written consent.

9. Prohibition on Scraping and Automated Access

You expressly agree not to use any automated means — including but not limited to web scrapers, crawlers, bots, spiders, data mining tools, AI training pipelines, or browser automation frameworks — to access, collect, copy, or index any content from the Service.

We actively monitor for and employ technical measures to detect and block automated access. Any systematic or automated access to the Service without our prior written consent constitutes a breach of these Terms and may also constitute a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and/or a violation of the Database Directive (96/9/EC as retained in UK law).

We reserve the right to seek injunctive relief and damages (including account of profits) against any person or entity that scrapes or systematically extracts content from the Service.

10. Prohibition on Reverse Engineering

You must not attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, object code, underlying algorithms, AI system prompts, model weights, or proprietary configurations of the Service or any component thereof.

Our AI system prompts and model configurations are proprietary trade secrets stored exclusively on our servers and are never transmitted to the client. Any attempt to extract, intercept, or reconstruct these prompts through network analysis, prompt injection, jailbreaking, or any other means is strictly prohibited and constitutes a material breach of these Terms.

Breach of this clause may result in immediate account termination, civil proceedings for breach of confidence, and/or criminal prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of any information provided through the Service for any particular legal purpose.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable UK law.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, CourtCraft Advocate Ltd shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service.

Our total aggregate liability to you for any claims arising under or in connection with these Terms shall not exceed the total amount paid by you to us in the 12 months preceding the claim.

We are not liable for any outcome in your legal proceedings, whether or not you used our Service in preparation for those proceedings.

13. Confidentiality of Court Proceedings

Family court proceedings in England and Wales are subject to strict confidentiality rules. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of the Service complies with any applicable court orders, reporting restrictions, or rules regarding the confidentiality of proceedings, including the Children Act 1989 and the Family Procedure Rules 2010.

14. Session Monitoring and Security

We employ technical security measures including session fingerprinting, rate limiting, and anomalous access pattern detection to protect the integrity of the Service and prevent abuse. By using the Service, you consent to these security measures being applied to your session.

Unusual access patterns — including but not limited to high-frequency API requests, systematic content extraction, or access from multiple geographic locations in a short period — may result in temporary or permanent suspension of your account without notice.

15. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or if required by law.

You may terminate your account at any time by contacting us at support@courtcraftadvocate.com or through your account settings. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases immediately.

Sections 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, and 17 of these Terms survive termination.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes arising out of or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

If you have a complaint about the Service, please contact us first at support@courtcraftadvocate.com. We will endeavour to resolve complaints within 14 working days.

17. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email or by a prominent notice on the platform at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

18. Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us: