There’s a problem most litigators won’t admit publicly: they’ve been flying blind. For decades, attorneys preparing for state trial court cases have relied on courthouse whispers, colleague anecdotes, and educated guesses about how judges rule. Nicole Clark, a former business litigation attorney, got so frustrated sending internal emails and collecting anecdotes on judges to make strategic case recommendations that she built an entire platform to solve it.
That platform is Trellis Law, and it’s reshaping how America’s legal professionals approach state court litigation.
The State Court Black Hole
Here’s what Clark understood that others overlooked: while federal courts benefit from standardized systems like PACER, state courts operate independently across thousands of counties, leading to inconsistent public availability and high manual effort for research. Imagine trying to build a winning case strategy when critical information about judicial tendencies sits locked in filing cabinets across 2,500+ counties in 45 states.
Trellis Law makes the fragmented U.S. state trial court system searchable through a single interface, providing firms with timely AI-based insights on judges, cases, and opposing counsel. The platform currently covers over 3,000 courts, serving tens of thousands of law firms and litigators daily.
What Makes Trellis Law Different
Think of Trellis Law as the Google of state trial courts. But instead of cat videos and shopping results, you’re searching dockets, rulings, motions, and documents that were previously scattered or inaccessible. The platform aggregates massive amounts of public court data and applies AI-powered analytics to extract actionable intelligence.
Users can access actionable intelligence about judges or opposing counsel, litigation insights about clients and competitors, and find trial court records including dockets, rulings and filed documents across counties and states through a single interface.
Here’s the practical impact: Landon Stinson, Managing Attorney at Beacon Legal PLLC, explains that before Trellis Law, searching trial dockets was difficult and cumbersome, but with the platform, his team can instantly search every filing in every Florida trial docket to find exactly what they need in one place.
The November 2024 Game-Changer
Last November, Trellis Law launched Trellis AI, taking the platform from impressive to potentially industry-altering. The AI enhancement automates time-consuming tasks such as motion drafting, client updates, and discovery preparation, freeing up attorneys to focus on strategic decision-making and client advocacy.
The AI tools include case assessments that evaluate key case elements to guide strategic decisions, argument recommendations that generate well-structured legal arguments by analyzing complaints and referencing similar cases, and defense strategy development. Each motion draft incorporates insights from hundreds of thousands of successful trial court motions.
Real Voices From The Trenches
Miguel Aristizabal, Partner at Clayton Trial Lawyers, doesn’t mince words about the platform’s impact, calling it a true game changer that saves countless hours and streamlines work. Jack M. Rubin, Counsel at Newmeyer & Dillion, puts it even more dramatically, saying the information in Trellis Law changed his cases from defense to offense, calling it an essential tool for litigators.
Amy Carr, Senior Manager of Knowledge Management at Bowman and Brooke, offers institutional perspective: her firm uses the platform to access state court data, filings, and dockets across the country from a single point of access, with analytics layered on top, noting that Trellis Law has been huge for them and represents the best option available.
The Numbers Tell Their Own Story
Let’s get specific about Trellis Law’s reach. The platform provides insights and coverage across 3,000+ courts in over 2,500 counties, spanning 45 states. The company has raised $20 million in total funding and continues expanding coverage daily.
Pricing starts from $99 per month, making sophisticated legal analytics accessible to solo practitioners and small firms, not just BigLaw. This democratization of legal intelligence represents a significant shift in who can access premium research tools.
What Trellis Law Actually Does
The platform’s core functionality revolves around several key features. First, comprehensive judge analytics allow attorneys to review how specific judges have ruled on similar motions, identify patterns in their decisions, and understand their biographical information and evidentiary preferences.
Second, opposing counsel insights provide data on past performance, motion success rates, and litigation history of opposing lawyers or firms. Third, real-time alerts notify users about case updates, new filings, or topic-related developments. Fourth, advanced search filters enable users to narrow results by case type, jurisdiction, judge, and other criteria.
The platform also maintains repositories of legal briefs and memos that serve as references when drafting documents, and offers customizable dashboards for managing multiple cases simultaneously.
The Bigger Picture
What Clark built addresses something fundamental: transparency in the justice system. State trial courts have historically been fragmented, with many rulings, tentative decisions, and motion outcomes remaining siloed or requiring in-person courthouse visits. Trellis Law makes this public information genuinely public and usable.
Brian Cassidy, Student Services Librarian at Cleveland State University Law Library, highlights how the platform assists with strategic state trial court comparison analytics, whether contrasting different courts to view how judges have ruled on similar motions, seeing how specific legal issues are decided, or gaining competitive insights on opposing counsel.
The platform serves multiple user types: litigators building case strategies, law firms conducting business development research, legal departments managing corporate litigation, law schools and libraries supporting academic research, and even journalists investigating legal trends.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is Trellis Law?
Trellis Law is an AI-powered legal research and analytics platform that aggregates state trial court data from 45 states, making dockets, rulings, motions, and judicial analytics searchable through a single interface.
How much does Trellis Law cost?
Subscriptions begin at $99 per month for basic access. Professional subscriptions with more in-depth insights start at approximately $129.95 monthly. The platform offers both free basic searches and premium paid features.
Does Trellis Law cover federal courts?
No, Trellis Law specializes exclusively in state trial court data. It does not include federal trial court documents, focusing instead on filling the gap in state court information accessibility.
Is the data on Trellis Law accurate and safe to use?
The platform aggregates public court records and is considered safe for legal research. The company follows SOC 2 security standards. All uploaded files are encrypted at rest, and users’ data remains private and inaccessible to others.
Can Trellis Law predict case outcomes?
The platform provides data-driven insights based on historical judicial behavior patterns, helping attorneys make informed strategic decisions. However, it does not replace professional legal judgment and should be used as one tool among many in case preparation.