Terms of Service

ProPera Legal is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. We are a technology platform that provides tools, templates, and resources to assist self-represented litigants in managing their legal matters. Nothing on this platform constitutes legal advice, and use of our services does not create an attorney-client relationship.

You are strongly encouraged to consult with a licensed attorney regarding your specific legal situation and rights. The information and tools provided through ProPera are for general informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional legal counsel.

This applies to every part of ProPera, including our advocacy services. ProPera Legal advocates are not attorneys and do not provide legal advice or legal representation. Sections 5 through 14 govern advocacy services in detail, and you should read them before requesting an advocate.

ProPera provides the following services:

ProPera does not file documents with any court, does not serve documents on any party, and does not transmit anything on your behalf. Documents you build here are downloaded by you, and every step after that is yours.

Our document formatting was built to California pleading rules, and that layout is applied by default in every other state. Formatting requirements differ by state and often by county. If you are filing outside California, check your court's own rules first. ProPera does not warrant that a document produced here will be accepted by any court.

You must be at least 18 years old to use ProPera. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activities that occur under your account. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized access to your account.

You agree to use ProPera only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You shall not use the platform to engage in any fraudulent, abusive, or illegal activities.

ProPera maintains a National Court Misconduct Registry where users may submit complaints regarding court personnel, judges, attorneys, and other court-related professionals. By submitting a complaint, you acknowledge and agree that:

ProPera offers an advocacy services program in which trained advocates assist you with tasks you specifically direct. Advocacy services are offered on a paid basis and, for those who qualify under our hardship program, on a pro bono basis. This section and Sections 6 through 14 govern every advocacy engagement, whether it is paid or pro bono.

ProPera Legal advocates are not attorneys, are not paralegals, and do not provide legal services. Advocates are not licensed to practice law, do not work under the supervision of a licensed attorney, and are not authorized to give you legal advice of any kind. Nothing an advocate says, writes, prepares, or provides is legal advice, a legal opinion, or a substitute for consultation with a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.

Advocates do not exercise independent legal judgment on your behalf. An advocate acts only on your specific instruction and never decides, on their own initiative, what should happen in your legal matter. Decisions about legal strategy, what to file, what to say, what to sign, and how to proceed are yours alone, and you are strongly encouraged to consult a licensed attorney before making them.

Advocates will not, under any circumstances and regardless of what you ask for:

Every advocacy engagement runs on your instructions. You decide what tasks an advocate performs, and an advocate performs only those tasks. Because of that, you remain solely responsible for your legal matter and for every decision made in it.

You specifically acknowledge and agree that:

ProPera does not guarantee any outcome in your legal matter. No advocate is authorized to predict, promise, or guarantee a result, and any statement an advocate makes about a possible outcome is an opinion rather than a commitment.

Working with an advocate does not create an attorney-client relationship, and your communications with an advocate are not protected by the attorney-client privilege. Because an advocate is not an attorney, the attorney-client privilege, the attorney work-product doctrine, and comparable protections do not apply to what you tell an advocate, what an advocate tells you, or what an advocate prepares at your direction.

Those communications and materials may be discoverable in litigation, and an advocate may be compelled by subpoena, court order, or other legal process to produce them or to testify about them. Consider that possibility before you share something with an advocate that you would not want an opposing party to read.

ProPera treats what you share with an advocate as confidential and handles it in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Confidentiality as a matter of our internal practice is not the same thing as a legal privilege, and it does not prevent disclosure where the law requires it.

Advocates may be subject to mandatory reporting obligations under applicable law, including obligations to report suspected abuse or neglect of a child, an elder, or a dependent adult, or a credible threat of serious harm to an identifiable person. Where such an obligation applies, an advocate will comply with it.

ProPera does not provide an artificial-intelligence assistant, and there is no AI built into this platform. We considered building one and decided not to. What we offer instead is an optional connector that lets an AI assistant you already have, and pay for separately, read and update your workspace. That assistant belongs to you and to the company that makes it.

Advocates assist with clerical, organizational, and technical work at your direction. They do not perform legal research, do not tell you which authorities apply to your facts, and do not analyze your records for fraud, misconduct, or any other legal conclusion. If you need that kind of judgment, you need a licensed attorney.

Whatever produces a document here, whether you wrote it, an advocate formatted it, or an AI assistant of yours drafted it, the following applies to everything you file:

If you describe someone as having committed fraud, misconduct, or a crime in something you write here, that characterization is yours. It is not a finding, an adjudication, or a legal conclusion, and it does not establish that any person did anything wrong. You are solely responsible for how you publish, file, or otherwise use it, including any claim for defamation that follows.

At your direction, advocates may observe public court proceedings and take notes on what they observe, assist you in assembling complaints to judicial conduct bodies, state bars, and other oversight authorities, and help you organize information you wish to report as a whistleblower.

Court-watching notes are an informal record made by an observer. They are not a certified transcript, not an official court record, and not evidence of what occurred. ProPera does not warrant their accuracy or completeness, and they may not be admissible in any proceeding. Advocates observe only proceedings that are open to the public, follow the rules of the court they are observing, and do not record any proceeding where recording is prohibited.

You are the complainant on any complaint you submit. Advocates assemble and organize material at your direction. They do not sign, verify, file, or prosecute a complaint for you, and they do not decide what a complaint should say. You are responsible for the truth and accuracy of every statement in a complaint you submit and for every consequence of submitting it.

ProPera does not guarantee that any complaint will be investigated, accepted, acted on, or result in any outcome. Nothing in these Terms is a representation that a whistleblower statute, an anti-retaliation protection, or an immunity applies to you or to what you report. Whether such a protection applies is a legal question, and only a licensed attorney can advise you on it.

Advocacy sessions are generally conducted by video conference. Recording and automated transcription are optional. A session is recorded only when recording is turned on for that session, and you may decline recording, or ask your advocate to stop recording, at any time. Declining does not change the assistance you receive.

Recording exists first of all for your benefit. A session can cover a great deal at once, and a recording lets you go back over anything you discussed, at your own pace and as many times as you need. Recordings and transcripts are stored in ProPera’s cloud environment and made available to you at no added charge, and you may download them, keep them, or share them with anyone you choose.

ProPera may review a recording or transcript internally in two situations: to look into a dispute, a complaint, or a safety concern, and as an occasional spot-check on the quality of the assistance people receive. Access is limited to ProPera personnel who need it. ProPera does not sell recordings or transcripts and does not use them for advertising, and does not use them to train any artificial-intelligence model.

Several states, including Washington and California, require the consent of every participant before a communication may be recorded. If you invite another person into a recorded session, including a family member, a friend, a witness, or your attorney, you are responsible for telling them that the session is recorded and for obtaining their consent before they join. Do not bring another person into a recorded session without their knowledge.

If you download or share a recording or transcript, you are responsible for the consequences. Sharing may waive confidentiality or privilege, may expose sensitive information about you and about other participants, and may affect the rights of another participant. Once you have shared a recording, ProPera cannot retrieve it or control what happens to it.

ProPera keeps recordings and transcripts for twelve months and then deletes them. They are stored separately from your workspace records, so closing your account does not remove them; the twelve-month schedule and your own deletion requests are what clear them. You may ask us to delete a recording and its transcript at any time, and you may download your own copy while we still hold it.

Recording and transcription rely on third-party services, including Google Meet and Google Gemini, which process the session under their own terms. Automated transcription may contain errors. ProPera does not guarantee that any session will be successfully recorded, transcribed, or retained, and is not liable for a failed, incomplete, inaccurate, or lost recording or transcript.

You choose your own advocate. ProPera provides you with the list of advocates, including their backgrounds and their rates, and you may meet an advocate before deciding to work with them. You may change to a different advocate at any time. ProPera does not assign an advocate to you and does not substitute one without your agreement. An advocate may become unavailable, and ProPera does not guarantee the continued availability of any particular advocate; if that happens, you choose again. Which advocates are available varies by location and by subject matter.

Each advocate sets their own hourly rate, and rates differ between advocates. ProPera does not set, cap, or publish a standard rate. Your advocate’s rate is disclosed to you before you meet with them, and the fee for a session is shown before you confirm a booking. Rates are subject to change, and any change applies only to sessions booked after the new rate has been disclosed to you.

Advocacy fees are separate from any ProPera subscription. A subscription does not include advocacy services, and advocacy fees are not credited toward a subscription. There is one connection between them, and only one: if an advocacy services balance goes seriously unpaid, ProPera may pause your ProPera account under Section 20. Nothing else about the two is linked.

You agree to pay all fees for the sessions you book. Cancellation, rescheduling, and missed-appointment terms are disclosed at the time of booking and form part of your agreement for that session. Time an advocate has already worked at your direction is not refundable.

ProPera may decline to begin an advocacy engagement, may suspend one, and may end one at any time. That includes situations where we identify a conflict, where the assistance requested would be unlawful or would constitute the practice of law, where an advocate is subjected to abusive or threatening conduct, where fees are unpaid, and where continuing would be inconsistent with these Terms.

ProPera is not a law firm and does not perform conflict-of-interest checks in the manner that a law firm does. We make reasonable efforts to avoid pairing an advocate with parties who are adverse to each other in the same matter, but we do not warrant that no conflict exists. Tell us immediately if you believe your advocate has a conflict.

ProPera funds a limited amount of pro bono advocacy for people who qualify under our hardship program. Pro bono assistance is supported by donations, and the amount available at any time depends on funding.

Eligibility is determined by ProPera in its sole discretion. Applying does not entitle you to assistance. ProPera may approve, decline, limit, pause, or end pro bono assistance at any time and for any reason, and may cap the number of hours or the scope of the assistance provided. Pro bono assistance is personal to you, may not be transferred or assigned, and may not be resold or exchanged for anything of value.

If you obtain or attempt to obtain pro bono assistance by providing false or misleading information, ProPera may end that assistance immediately and may charge you at the applicable advocate rate for the assistance already provided.

Nothing in this program suggests that you cannot or should not also seek free or low-cost legal representation from a legal aid organization, a bar association referral service, or a court self-help center. We encourage you to pursue those resources as well.

Advocates are independent contractors who set their own rates and perform services at your direction. They are not employees or agents of ProPera. No advocate is authorized to bind ProPera, to make representations on ProPera’s behalf, or to modify these Terms, and no statement by an advocate changes what these Terms provide.

ProPera trains advocates on the limits of the role, on what they may not do, and on handling your information, and it provides you with the list of advocates from which you make your own choice. ProPera does not assign advocates to users. ProPera does not set advocates’ rates, does not control their schedules, and does not direct how an advocate carries out the tasks you assign. ProPera does not review, approve, or verify an advocate’s work product before you receive it. Where a recorded session is spot-checked under Section 10, that review looks at the quality of the assistance you received; it is not direction of the advocate’s work.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, ProPera is not liable for an advocate’s independent acts or omissions, meaning conduct outside the scope of what ProPera engaged them to do. This does not limit any right you have that cannot be limited by agreement, and nothing here requires you to pursue an advocate personally.

ProPera describes its advocacy services as guided by the principles of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which supports the right of people to receive assistance, including assistance in using technology. That description explains why we do this work. It is not legal advice, and it is not an interpretation of the law as it applies to you.

Help you need in order to use the platform is free, and it always will be. If a disability makes ProPera hard to use, ask us and we will help you use it at no charge. We do not add a fee, a surcharge, or a higher rate because you need an auxiliary aid or a reasonable modification to reach the service. You do not need a diagnosis, a letter, or an explanation to ask. Write to help@properalegal.org or tell any member of our team.

That is separate from paid advocacy, and the two should not be confused. Accessibility assistance is practical help with reaching and operating the platform. It is not legal coaching, not litigation strategy, and not court representation, and we will not describe general paid help as an accommodation in order to make it sound like something you are owed.

Courts and agencies set their own rules about who may appear, who may sit at counsel table, who may address the court, and what accommodations they will grant. Whether a particular accommodation is available to you, and how to request it, is a legal question specific to your circumstances and your jurisdiction. Consult a licensed attorney or use the court’s own accommodation process. ProPera is not responsible for a court’s or an agency’s refusal to permit an advocate to take part, or for any consequence of such a refusal.

You retain all rights to any content you create, submit, post, or display through ProPera, including legal documents, case information, complaints, and personal data.

By submitting content to ProPera, you grant us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, store, reproduce, and process such content solely for the purpose of providing and improving our services to you and other users.

You are solely responsible for the accuracy, legality, and appropriateness of any content you submit. You warrant that you have all necessary rights to submit such content and that your submissions do not violate any third-party rights or applicable laws.

The ProPera platform, including its software, features, functionality, templates, and original content, is owned by ProPera Legal and is protected by United States and international copyright, trademark, patent, and other intellectual property laws.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, or create derivative works from any part of the ProPera platform without our prior written consent. ProPera Legal® is a trademark of ProPera Legal.

THE PROPERA PLATFORM IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. PROPERA MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, RELIABILITY, OR SUITABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION, TOOLS, OR SERVICES PROVIDED.

ProPera does not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free from viruses or other harmful components. You use the platform at your own risk.

THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES IN FULL TO ADVOCACY SERVICES, INCLUDING RESEARCH, ANALYSIS, DOCUMENT PREPARATION, COURT-WATCHING, AND RECORDED SESSIONS, AND IT APPLIES WHETHER THOSE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED FOR A FEE OR ON A PRO BONO BASIS. PROPERA DOES NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR SUITABILITY OF ANY ADVOCATE’S WORK PRODUCT.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PROPERA LEGAL, ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, AND PARTNERS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES.

This limitation applies regardless of the legal theory upon which such damages are based, whether in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or otherwise, even if ProPera has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

In no event shall ProPera's total liability to you for all claims exceed the amount you paid to ProPera in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or $100 USD, whichever is greater.

This limitation applies to advocacy services and to the acts and omissions of advocates. For a claim arising from advocacy services, the amount you paid to ProPera includes the advocacy fees you paid in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. Where the advocacy services giving rise to a claim were provided on a pro bono basis and you paid nothing for them, ProPera’s total liability for that claim shall not exceed $100 USD.

Neither the exclusion above nor the dollar limit applies to our own serious misconduct. Nothing in this section excludes or limits ProPera’s liability for its own fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, or unlawful conduct, including the unauthorized practice of law, or for any duty the law does not permit us to limit, including our privacy and data security obligations. For those, there is no damages exclusion and no dollar ceiling. This is stated here rather than left to the phrase "to the maximum extent permitted by law", because a limit that swallows the very losses a fraud claim is made of would be no promise at all.

If you have signed a Client Services Agreement, the same carve-out appears there and the two are meant to be read the same way. Where they differ, the one that gives you more protection applies.

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless ProPera Legal and its nonprofit partners, including but not limited to GREAT Group and Humanity Against Violence, from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from:

Certain features of ProPera may require a paid subscription. By subscribing, you agree to pay all applicable fees as described at the time of purchase.

Subscription fees are billed in advance on a recurring basis. You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings. Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period.

For advocacy services: we do not require a deposit or a retainer, and we do not bill you automatically on a recurring schedule. Each invoice is separate. If you were billed for work that was not performed, we refund it. Refunds for completed work are handled case by case, and you can always ask.

For a ProPera subscription: fees are billed in advance for the period, and cancelling stops the next renewal rather than refunding the period you are in. Where we pause your account over an unpaid advocacy services balance, we stop billing you for Premium that day and credit or refund the part of the period you paid for but cannot use, as described above. Nothing here limits a refund the law requires us to give you.

A seriously unpaid advocacy services balance can pause your ProPera account, and here is exactly how that works. ProPera Premium is a separate subscription and advocacy fees are never credited toward it. Even so, if an advocacy services balance is unpaid past the grace period in your Client Services Agreement, or you stop following an approved payment plan, ProPera may pause your account until the balance is resolved. A pause suspends your access to the whole platform and not only to Premium features. While it is in place you cannot open your workspace, and an AI assistant you have connected cannot reach it on your behalf either.

A pause does not pause anything in your legal matter. Court deadlines keep running, and while your account is paused you cannot reach your own records through the platform. That is exactly why we tell you before rather than after, and why you should ask us for a copy of anything you are going to need. Nothing in this section applies to a ProPera subscription held by someone who has never used advocacy services.

We may suspend or terminate your access to ProPera for violation of these Terms, fraudulent activity, misuse of the platform, conduct that threatens the safety of another person, or where the law requires it. Where the risk allows it we tell you first and give you a chance to put it right; where it does not, such as fraud or a threat to someone’s safety, we may act immediately.

Suspension for an unpaid advocacy services balance is not covered by this section. That is a PAUSE under Section 20, which has its own notice period, its own limits, and its own ending: it lifts as soon as the balance is resolved, and nothing of yours is deleted while it lasts.

Upon termination, your right to use the platform will immediately cease. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination shall survive, including ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

You may terminate your account at any time by contacting us at help@properalegal.org.

ProPera may update these Terms. We notify users of material changes by email or through a prominent notice on the platform, and every revision carries its own version and effective date so you can tell which wording you agreed to.

A material change to these Terms is not something you accept by carrying on. When we publish one, the app asks you to read it and accept it before you continue, and it records which version you accepted and when. If you would rather not accept it, you do not have to; you can sign out and close your account instead. Until you accept it you will not be able to open your workspace, so if you need a copy of your own documents while you are deciding, write to us and we will send it to you.

Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy work slightly differently. They are versioned and dated the same way, and we notify you of material changes, but they are not put behind that acceptance step. If a change to either one would materially reduce the protection you have, we will tell you before it takes effect.

ProPera Legal is incorporated in the State of Washington. These Terms, and any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to them, to advocacy services, or to your use of ProPera, are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

You and ProPera agree that the exclusive venue for any dispute that is not resolved informally shall be the state or federal courts located in the State of Washington, and each of us consents to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

You and ProPera agree to attempt to resolve any dispute through good-faith negotiation before initiating formal legal proceedings. Write to us at help@properalegal.org describing the dispute and what you would like us to do about it, and we will work with you directly to try to resolve it.

Nothing in this section deprives you of the protection of any consumer-protection law of the state where you reside that cannot be waived by agreement, and nothing in this section prevents either of us from bringing a qualifying claim in small claims court.

You agree not to use ProPera to:

ProPera may link to outside services and organizations. We do not vet, verify, license-check, endorse, supervise, or guarantee any of them, and we receive no share of what they charge you. Choosing one, and checking their credentials, is entirely your decision and your responsibility.

Your interactions with third-party service providers are solely between you and such third parties. ProPera is not liable for any damages or losses arising from such interactions.

This includes any attorney, law firm, or expert witness that an advocate locates or contacts at your direction. Locating or contacting a third party for you is not a recommendation, an endorsement, or a vetting of that third party, and any engagement you enter into with them is solely between you and them.

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms shall otherwise remain in full force and effect.

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy, are the agreement between you and ProPera concerning your use of the platform, and they supersede any prior version of them.

If you signed a Client Services Agreement, both documents apply, and here is how they fit together. The Client Services Agreement governs the advocacy engagement you signed it for: what the person helping you will and will not do, what you are charged, notice periods, and how that work starts and stops. These Terms govern the platform: your account, the software, the workspace, and everything you do here whether or not you ever engage an advocate.

Where both documents address the same subject and they cannot be read together, the one that gives you MORE protection is the one that applies. We would rather be held to the better promise than argue about which document we made it in.