Terms of Service

1. The service

Search the Law (“the Service”) provides access to publicly available UK legal information — court judgments, legislation, tribunal decisions, parliamentary debates, and government guidance — through a search interface. The Service also offers AI-powered features including query translation, citation network analysis, plain English explanations of judgments, and structured research outputs (Research Reports, Full Briefs, and research-to-document).

The Service is operated by Search The Law Group Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17161794), with its registered office at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ. References to “we,” “us,” or “our” refer to Search The Law Group Ltd.

2. Not legal advice

Search the Law is not a law firm. Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice, legal representation, or a solicitor-client relationship. The information provided is for legal research purposes only.

AI-generated analyses, briefs, and research outputs are produced by large language models and may contain errors, omissions, or mischaracterisations of the law. These outputs are intended as a starting point for professional legal research, not as a substitute for it. They should not be relied upon as authoritative statements of the law, cited directly in court submissions, or treated as verified without independent checking against the original source materials.

Users are solely responsible for verifying the accuracy and applicability of any information obtained through the Service before relying upon it in any professional, legal, or personal capacity.

3. Data sources and licensing

Search results are drawn from official UK government databases. While we make every effort to provide accurate and complete results, we cannot guarantee that all relevant materials will appear in search results, nor that the information retrieved is the most current version.

Legislation is made available under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Parliamentary material is made available under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. GOV.UK guidance, tribunal decisions, and similar public government content carry the same or equivalent open licences.

UK court judgments sourced from The National Archives’ Find Case Law service are made available under the Open Justice Licence. Crown copyright material reproduced by permission of The National Archives.

An extended licence from The National Archives has been granted to Search The Law Group Ltd, covering computational analysis and the delivery of research outputs through the platform.

The case law available through this platform only partially represents the activities of the courts and tribunals of the United Kingdom. We comply with all applicable licensing conditions.

4. User accounts

You may create a free account to save searches, bookmark cases, and organise research. Sign-in uses a passwordless magic-link sent to your email address — you are responsible for keeping your email account secure, and for signing out on shared devices.

You may not share your account credentials with third parties or allow others to access the Service through your account, except where your subscription tier expressly provides for multiple user seats (see section 5 below). Each user seat is for the use of a single named individual.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that are used in ways that violate these terms, that place excessive load on the service, or that are used for automated scraping or bulk data collection.

5. Subscription tiers and pricing

The Service is available in the following tiers:

Free tier. Access to the search interface across all databases, with a daily search limit and access to Quick Overview analyses. No payment required. No credit card required.

Professional (£39.99 per month). Expanded search limits, citation network analysis, and a monthly allocation of research credits for Research Reports and Full Briefs. Single user seat.

Chambers (£99.99 per month). All Professional features with higher search and research limits, a larger monthly credit allocation, and three user seats.

We reserve the right to modify subscription pricing upon thirty (30) days’ written notice to subscribers. Any price change will take effect at the start of the next billing cycle following the notice period. Your continued subscription after a price change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the new price. If you do not accept a price change, you may cancel your subscription before the new price takes effect in accordance with section 8 below.

Current pricing, tier limits, and included features are displayed on the website and form part of these terms.

6. Research credits

Certain features of the Service — specifically Research Report and Full Brief generation — consume research credits. Each subscription tier includes a monthly allocation of credits, which is specified on the website at the time of subscription.

Credits are allocated at the start of each billing cycle and expire at the end of that billing cycle. Unused credits do not roll over to subsequent billing periods.

Additional credits may be purchased as one-off top-ups at the prices displayed on the website. Top-up credits are consumed in the order they were purchased (first in, first out) and do not expire, except upon termination of your account.

A Research Report consumes 1 credit. A Full Brief consumes 3 credits. We reserve the right to adjust credit consumption rates for new or modified features, with any changes published on the website prior to taking effect.

Credits have no monetary value, cannot be transferred between accounts, and cannot be exchanged for cash or any other form of consideration.

7. Billing and payment

All paid subscriptions are billed on a monthly recurring basis. Your billing cycle begins on the date you first subscribe and renews on the same date each subsequent month. Payments are processed by Stripe. All prices are stated in pounds sterling (£) and are inclusive of VAT where applicable.

By subscribing, you authorise us (through our payment processor, Stripe) to charge your designated payment method on a recurring monthly basis at the applicable subscription rate until you cancel. It is your responsibility to ensure that your payment method remains valid and that sufficient funds are available.

If a scheduled payment fails, we may reattempt the charge in accordance with Stripe’s retry schedule. If payment remains unsuccessful after all retry attempts, your subscription may be suspended or cancelled and your account downgraded to the free tier.

One-off credit top-up purchases are charged immediately at the time of purchase and are not recurring.

8. Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings or by contacting us at hello@searchthe.law.

Upon cancellation, your subscription will remain active until the end of the current billing period for which you have already been charged. You will retain access to all paid features, including any remaining research credits, until that date. At the end of the paid period, your account will be automatically downgraded to the free tier.

Cancellation does not entitle you to any refund (see section 9 below).

9. Refund policy

In short: All fees are non-refundable. The free tier exists so you can evaluate the Service before paying. Once you subscribe, there are no refunds.

Subscriptions. All subscription fees are non-refundable. Once payment has been collected, no refund will be issued, whether in whole or in part, regardless of usage. The free tier provides a full opportunity to evaluate the Service before subscribing. This applies to both initial subscriptions and renewals. You may cancel your subscription at any time to prevent future charges, and you will retain access to paid features until the end of the current billing period.

Credit top-ups. One-off credit top-up purchases are non-refundable once purchased, whether or not the credits have been consumed.

Rationale. The free tier provides full access to search functionality, allowing you to evaluate the Service’s features, data sources, and output quality before any payment is made. By subscribing, you confirm that you have evaluated the Service through the free tier, that you are satisfied with its capabilities, and that you consent to immediate access to paid features with no right to a refund.

Consumer rights. If you are subscribing as a consumer (that is, for purposes outside your trade, business, craft, or profession), you may have a right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (the “CCRs”) within 14 days of entering into the contract. However, by subscribing and accessing the Service, you expressly request that we begin providing the digital content immediately, and you acknowledge that you will lose your right to cancel under Regulation 37(1)(a) of the CCRs once the digital content has been fully provided. For ongoing subscriptions, this acknowledgement applies to each billing period upon commencement of that period. Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in respect of digital content that is not of satisfactory quality, not fit for a particular purpose, or not as described.

10. Usage limits and rate limiting

To maintain service availability and manage infrastructure costs, requests are subject to per-IP and per-account rate limits, which vary by subscription tier. The applicable limits for each tier are displayed on the website and form part of these terms.

Clients that exceed rate limits will receive an HTTP 429 (“Too Many Requests”) response and should retry after a short delay. We may also apply an overall hourly ceiling on computationally expensive operations; if that ceiling is reached, the Service will return HTTP 503 (“Service temporarily at capacity”) until the ceiling resets.

Exceeding or attempting to circumvent usage limits may result in temporary or permanent suspension of your account.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service for automated scraping, bulk downloading of judgments or legislation, reselling or redistributing the data commercially, or any purpose that would violate the licensing terms of the underlying data sources.

You agree not to attempt to circumvent usage limits, interfere with the operation of the Service, reverse-engineer any aspect of the Service, or access the Service through automated means without our prior written consent.

12. Intellectual property

The Service’s software, interface design, branding, and proprietary algorithms (including but not limited to citation network analysis, search ranking, and AI prompt engineering) are the intellectual property of Search the Law and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws.

Research outputs generated by the Service (Research Reports, Full Briefs, and similar documents) are provided for your professional use. You may use, copy, and distribute these outputs in connection with your legal practice or research. However, the outputs are generated using third-party AI models and publicly available legal data, and we make no representation as to the originality or copyrightability of those outputs. We retain no ownership claim over the factual content of your research outputs.

13. Limitation of liability

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, that search results will be complete or accurate, or that AI-generated outputs will be free from error or suitable for any particular purpose.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you for any claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the Service shall not exceed the total amount of fees paid by you to us in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

In no event shall we be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, loss of data, loss of business or professional opportunity, or damages arising from reliance on search results or AI-generated outputs, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

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 by applicable law.

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Search the Law and its operator from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to your use of the Service, your breach of these terms, or your violation of any applicable law or regulation.

15. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via the website and, where you have an active subscription, by email to the address associated with your account. Changes will take effect thirty (30) days after notice is given, except where a longer notice period is required by law.

Continued use of the Service after the effective date of any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated terms. If you do not agree to the changes, you should cancel your subscription and cease using the Service before the changes take effect.

16. Severability

If any provision of these terms is found to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect. The invalid or unenforceable provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid and enforceable, while preserving the original intent of the provision as closely as possible.

17. Entire agreement

These terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Search the Law with respect to your use of the Service and supersede all prior or contemporaneous communications, proposals, and agreements, whether oral or written.

18. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes arising from or related to these terms or the Service shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

19. Contact

For questions about these terms, billing enquiries, or refund requests, email hello@searchthe.law.