Client and Consumer Portal Terms of Use
Effective September 15, 2026 · Version v1.18
Version v1.18 · Effective September 15, 2026 · Published September 15, 2026
Effective September 15, 2026 · Version v1.18
Version v1.18 · Effective September 15, 2026 · Published September 15, 2026
Two audiences, two sets of Terms:
These terms apply to you if: (a) your attorney or law firm sent you a link to access the Octicase portal; (b) the link contains a unique token or code that identifies your case or matter; (c) your law firm has set up your access; and (d) the law firm controls what documents, information, and other users you can see. If this describes you, Section 2 of these terms applies to your use.
These terms also apply to you if: (a) you use the platform directly, with or without creating an account, including Understand My Options, and not through a law firm invitation; (b) you are using the platform on your own behalf for your own legal matter, injury claim, or dispute; (c) you are not being represented by a law firm; and (d) you use the Services under the Consumer Terms of Service, whether on a free or a paid plan. If this describes you, Section 3 of these terms applies to your use. Your subscription itself is governed by the Consumer Terms of Service, which you accept when you create your account; these Portal Terms supplement them, and if the two conflict, the Consumer Terms of Service control. If you registered only to open a summary link that a consumer created under Section 4.1 (not a portal invitation from a firm under Section 1A), the Consumer Terms of Service govern that access, not these Terms.
Your attorney (or the law firm) is your attorney. The Octicase platform and Octicase are not your attorneys. Octicase is providing a tool that your attorney uses to manage your case. Your legal advice, representation, and attorney-client relationship are with your attorney or law firm, not with Octicase.
Your attorney controls: what documents are uploaded to your portal, who from the law firm (or other authorized parties) can access your information, what you can see and download, and when your access is disabled or terminated. Do not share your portal link with anyone except as instructed by your attorney. Do not share your login credentials. Keep your access link private and confidential. This control covers your matter. The Directory and the video library are open to every portal user and your firm cannot restrict them (Section 4.1).
Communication through the platform (including documents, messages, and information you upload) may be subject to attorney-client privilege and work product protections, depending on how your attorney has set up the portal. However, nothing in this platform creates an attorney-client relationship with Octicase. Any questions about privilege or protection should be directed to your attorney.
Keep your access link and credentials confidential. Do not allow others to access your portal without permission from your attorney. Do not take screenshots or share portal contents unless authorized by your attorney. Information you upload or view may include sensitive personal, medical, or financial information. Treat all such information as confidential.
You are responsible for: (a) maintaining the security and confidentiality of your access link and credentials; (b) promptly notifying your attorney if your access is compromised; (c) reviewing information posted by your attorney and responding promptly; (d) following any instructions your attorney provides regarding use of the portal; and (e) not using the portal for any unlawful or unauthorized purpose.
You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of any information you upload to the portal. Octicase does not verify or validate information; your attorney is responsible for managing your case data.
Octicase does not provide legal advice through the portal. The platform is a tool for case management and document organization. All legal advice comes from your attorney, not from Octicase.
IMPORTANT: By using Octicase directly, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) Octicase is not your attorney; (b) no attorney-client relationship is formed between you and Octicase by your use of the platform; (c) the Services do not provide legal advice; and (d) nothing in this platform should be construed as legal counsel or recommendation specific to your case.
You are solely responsible for all legal decisions, strategy, deadlines, filings, submissions, and outcomes related to your case or claim. This includes: (a) deciding whether to settle, go to trial, or file; (b) ensuring you meet all legal deadlines and statutes of limitations; (c) determining what documents to file and when; (d) interpreting court rules and legal requirements; (e) evaluating settlement offers and case value; and (f) all other legal decisions.
Octicase strongly recommends that you retain a licensed attorney for your matter, especially if: (a) your potential recovery exceeds the small-claims limit of your state (for an individual in California, $12,500); (b) your case involves complex legal issues; (c) there are strict statutes of limitation or filing deadlines; (d) you face opposition from another party, insurance company, or government agency; (e) you are unsure of your legal rights or options; or (f) your case could result in significant financial, personal, or legal consequences. An attorney can review your case, advise you of your rights, and protect your interests in ways this platform cannot.
Octicase does not:
Octicase is not a HIPAA Covered Entity when you use the platform for your own health information. If you are an individual managing only your own medical records and health information, HIPAA does not apply to Octicase's handling of that information, because you are not a Covered Entity or Business Associate. Octicase is governed instead by the Privacy Policy and by California law. The Confidentiality of Medical Information Act does apply, and it applies to Octicase directly rather than through anybody else: Cal. Civ. Code Section 56.06(b) deems a business that offers software to consumers designed to maintain medical information so that a person can manage their own to be a provider of health care, and that is what Octicase is for the information you keep here. Four things follow. Octicase does not disclose your medical information without an authorization that meets Section 56.11, unless Section 56.10(b) compels the disclosure or Section 56.10(c) permits it. Section 56.10(d) reaches use and not only disclosure: except as you expressly authorize, Octicase may not share, sell, use for marketing or otherwise use medical information for a purpose that is not necessary to provide health care services to you. Asking Octicase for your own copy is not an authorization to send it to anybody else, which Section 56.07(b) states in terms, and Section 56.07(a) separately entitles you to that copy at no charge. And anyone who receives your medical information, whether under an authorization or under a disclosure Section 56.10(c) permits, may not pass it on again except under a new authorization or as the law requires (Section 56.13). If Octicase negligently releases it, Section 56.36 gives you remedies, including nominal damages of one thousand dollars without your having to prove that the release harmed you. Where you ask Octicase to send your information to somebody else, the permission Section 56.11 requires is taken on the Authorization to Share Your Medical Information, which is a page of its own.
Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your data:
You may request a copy of all your data in a portable format at any time, and you may cancel any subscription and delete your account at any time; both are governed by the Consumer Terms of Service. On deletion, Octicase removes your data from active systems within thirty (30) days. If you use Understand My Options without an active account, or do not return after submitting, your intake answers, summary and uploads (documents, images, audio and video) are deleted from active systems thirty (30) days after submission, a deletion we run by hand until the automatic process is in place; the notice and the extension described next will be offered once that automatic process is running: where you have given us an email address or phone number you have not asked us to stop using, we will tell you seven days before the first period ends, and you will then be able to create an account, or extend the period once by a further thirty (30) days, to keep them; the extension can be taken only once. Until that process is running the deletion is run by hand, so it will not happen sooner than thirty (30) days and may take longer, and you can ask us to delete this material at any time and we will do it. If your information may be evidence in a dispute, the law may require you to preserve it; deletion, whether you request it or it happens after thirty days, does not release you from that duty, and we cannot recover what is deleted. What remains after deletion are aggregated counts that cannot be linked to you and that we never publish or license below a cell of ten people, as Section 4.8 of the Privacy Policy describes. If you gave separate permission on a screen of its own, we may also have kept a record of the facts of your situation under an identifier that is not your name; that record is personal information; we ask separately, on a second screen, whether we may use it to train our own models, and you may allow us to keep the record and refuse the training, in which case it stays for your own use and enters no training at all; we keep it no longer than twenty-four (24) months and then ask you again; we do not sell it today and would sell it only under a separate signed authorization naming the buyer that you may withdraw at any time, and we delete it when you ask us to, including from our backups within six (6) months of the request. Deleting it takes it out of the set we train on and puts you on a list so that nothing of yours enters any future training; software we had already trained is not undone by your request, and your request does not require us to retrain it or to discard it; we would retrain or withdraw it only where a court, a regulator or the law required it, and then we would, and we say this now rather than let you find it out later. We keep none for anyone under eighteen, and it never includes what videos you have watched. Section 8.5 of the Consumer Terms of Service and Section 4.8(f) of the Privacy Policy set out both layers. Copies inside encrypted backups expire on the ordinary backup cycle described in the Privacy Policy and are not used for any purpose in the meantime, except the case-level record and any consumer health data, which come out within the six (6) months stated above, ahead of that cycle, as the Data Retention and Deletion Policy provides. We retain data longer only where a law, a litigation hold or a preservation obligation requires it. Contact privacy@octicase.com to request data export or account deletion, which is where we track the legal deadlines; anything you send to support@octicase.com is passed on to that address.
Octicase is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Using this site does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Octicase does not refer, recommend, endorse, rate, or rank any attorney or other professional. The professional Directory is a listing service; listings are self-reported by the professional or, where marked as unclaimed, compiled by us from public registries and licensed business directories and not yet confirmed by the professional; except where a fact is expressly marked as verified, we have not checked it, and where we mark an attorney's license status as verified we have confirmed only that fact with the State Bar of California. Verification is not an endorsement. The labels "claimed" and "complete" mean only that the professional has taken over the listing and filled in the fields; they are not verification. You are responsible for your own due diligence before retaining anyone. The Directory includes other law firms and professionals. If you are a client of a firm that gave you portal access, you may browse the whole Directory and the video library; you are free to consult anyone, and we do not report to your firm which listings you view or contact.
The Directory and Understand My Options are independent. Nothing you enter into Understand My Options filters, sorts, or personalizes the Directory, and we do not send your case information to any attorney or firm by any channel, except a link you create under this Section, which we deliver only to the person you name, and a transmission at your direction to a professional you have already hired, as the Consumer Terms of Service provide. You may download your summary or email it to yourself, at no charge and needing nobody's permission, as Cal. Civ. Code Section 56.07(a) requires. Where the product offers it, you may also create a link that lets a person you choose view or download it; that person must register with us (name, phone and a verified email address) to open it, and before the link exists you sign the Authorization to Share Your Medical Information, because Section 56.10(a) does not let us disclose your medical information to anybody else without an authorization, and Section 56.11 is what makes one valid. We do not supply or suggest recipients, and we transmit your information only where you direct us to under the Consumer Terms of Service.
Understand My Options is the self-assessment tool for individuals who come to Octicase on their own. It is not part of the client portal a firm provides to its clients, and nothing in these Terms promises it to a firm-represented client; a client who wants to use it does so as a consumer under the Consumer Terms of Service.
Understand My Options gives general information only. It does not show you a score, rating or valuation of your situation, does not tell you whether you have a valid claim, does not advise you whether to accept a settlement offer, and does not give you your filing deadline. Where the platform internally triages or classifies a submission, that classification is advisory, is reviewed by a person, and is not displayed to you. Only a licensed attorney who has reviewed your specific facts can evaluate your claim.
Where you interact with an AI assistant, we tell you before the interaction begins, and the assistant will tell you truthfully that it is not a person if you ask.
You must be at least eighteen years old to accept these terms. Where a matter involves a minor, a parent or legal guardian acts on the minor's behalf, as described in Section 12 of the Privacy Policy.
Whether you are a firm-represented client or pro se consumer, your access link and credentials are confidential and personal to you. Do not share your link or password with anyone. If you believe your access has been compromised, notify security@octicase.com immediately.
You shall not: (a) use the portal for any unlawful purpose; (b) upload illegal, fraudulent, or infringing content; (c) attempt to hack, disrupt, or interfere with the platform; (d) share the portal with unauthorized persons; (e) violate the rights of others; or (f) use the portal in violation of any law or professional conduct rule. Violations may result in termination of your access; whether any prepaid amount is returned is governed by the Refund Policy.
You give your consent to electronic records and signatures separately, through the I CONSENT control in the ESIGN/UETA Consent and Disclosure, before you sign anything; by accepting these terms you consent to electronic communication. You acknowledge that electronic signatures have the same legal effect as handwritten signatures. This consent is governed by the E-SIGN Act and state law, and is further detailed in Octicase's ESIGN/UETA Consent and Disclosure. This consent does not authorize marketing calls or text messages, or calls using an automated dialer or artificial voice; those require the separate consent described in Section 14 of the Privacy Policy, which you can withdraw at any time.
Octicase is committed to making the portal accessible to users with disabilities, and works towards the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. If you experience any accessibility barrier, please contact support@octicase.com and tell us what you were trying to do; we will work with you to provide the information or complete the transaction by another means.
THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. OCTICASE DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE PLATFORM WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR ACCURATE. YOU USE THE PLATFORM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
OCTICASE IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, LOST TIME, LOST OPPORTUNITY, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. OCTICASE'S AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE PORTAL WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID OCTICASE IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100). THESE LIMITS DO NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY ARISING FROM OCTICASE'S GROSS NEGLIGENCE OR WILLFUL MISCONDUCT, AND THEY DO NOT APPLY WHERE THE LAW DOES NOT PERMIT AN EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION. SECTION 5.3 PRESERVES THE RIGHTS THAT CANNOT BE WAIVED.
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflicts of law principles - EXCEPT that if you are a California resident, California law governs to the extent it provides you protections that cannot be waived by contract, and those protections control over anything in these terms that conflicts with them. Section 5 sets out how disputes are resolved.
Octicase may modify these terms with 30 days' written notice. For a change that is material and adverse to you, we will ask you to accept the updated terms before they apply to you; if you decline, you may stop using the portal and, if you are a paying subscriber, terminate as the Consumer Terms of Service provide, with a pro-rata refund of any prepaid period. For other changes, continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
If any provision is found invalid, that provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid, or if not possible, severed. All other provisions remain in full effect.
We would rather fix a problem than litigate it. Please contact us first at legal@octicase.com and give us thirty (30) days to resolve your concern.
If you are an individual using the portal for your own personal matter, you are NOT required to arbitrate. You may bring any claim in small claims court in the county where you live, or in any court of competent jurisdiction in your state of residence. We will not seek to move, remove, or dismiss your claim on the basis of a forum selection clause.
Nothing in these terms waives, limits, or modifies: (a) your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act - any waiver is void under Cal. Civ. Code section 1798.192; (b) your rights under the Consumers Legal Remedies Act - any waiver is void under Cal. Civ. Code section 1751; (c) your rights under the Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code sections 17200 et seq.; or (d) your right to seek public injunctive relief in any forum, per McGill v. Citibank, N.A. (2017) 2 Cal.5th 945. If any provision of these terms is held to waive one of these rights, that provision is severed as to you and the rest of these terms still applies.
These terms do not require you to waive participation in class or consolidated actions, and nothing in them is a class-action waiver. Any agreement to resolve a dispute individually would have to be made separately and knowingly, and no such agreement affects a non-waivable right or any claim for public injunctive relief.
If you access this portal because your law firm invited you, your relationship with your law firm is governed by your engagement agreement with that firm, not by these terms. Nothing here alters your rights against your own attorney.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: By accessing this portal or using the Octicase platform, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform.