LITEfile Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Important information

LITEfile is an official, approved electronic filing tool of the Massachusetts Trial Court.

• LITEfile is an official, approved electronic filing tool for the configured jurisdiction, but it does not provide legal advice or representation.
• The LIT Lab and LITEfile do not decide whether a filing is legally sufficient or accepted. Court rules, local practices, and laws can change, and you are responsible for reviewing your filing before submitting it.
• A transmission or confirmation from LITEfile is not a court acceptance. The court's filing system, clerk, or other authorized court official determines whether a filing is accepted and the effective filing date.
• Information and document tools are provided as-is and without warranties. To the extent allowed by law, the LIT Lab and Suffolk University Law School are not liable for losses resulting from your use of LITEfile or reliance on information provided through it.
• Information you enter may not be protected by attorney-client privilege or the attorney work-product doctrine. Do not use LITEfile for unauthorized practice of law.

Using LITEfile

• You must be at least 13 years old to use LITEfile.
• LITEfile is provided as a free public service. You may not resell access to it or use it in a way that is illegal, abusive, interferes with other users, or attempts to bypass security controls.
• If you are filing for another person, you are responsible for having permission to provide their information and documents.
• Keep your account credentials and filing links private. Anyone who can access your account or a shared link may be able to see the information connected to it.

Information we collect

We keep aggregate usage counts to understand which kinds of filings people make, which jurisdictions they use, whether they start or respond to cases, whether they file for themselves or someone else, filer ZIP codes, and whether uploaded PDFs contain form fields. Reports do not include names, email addresses, account identifiers, case numbers, documents, or authentication credentials. We restrict access to these reports and hide small groups to reduce the risk of identifying a person. Aggregate counts may be retained indefinitely after account or filing data is deleted.

To provide e-filing, we may collect information you enter or upload, including your name, contact information, addresses, party information, case details, filing documents, payment information, and account credentials. We may also collect browser, device, IP address, and activity information needed for security, troubleshooting, and service improvement.

We retain filing and account information for as long as needed to provide the service, support court processing and filing history, meet legal or operational requirements, and protect the security of the system. Retention can vary by jurisdiction and filing type.

How information is shared

• We share your filing information and documents with the configured court and the electronic filing services needed to process your submission.
• We may share information with service providers that host, secure, maintain, or support LITEfile, under appropriate restrictions.
• We do not sell your personal information. We may use anonymous or aggregated information to improve legal technology and may disclose information when required by law or to protect the service and its users.

Use of artificial intelligence

LITEfile provides optional artificial intelligence (AI) features to make preparing and submitting court filings faster and easier. We adhere to strict, principle-based standards to protect your privacy and legal data:

• Where AI is used to help route your filing: When you upload documents, AI can be used to help route your filing to the right place. AI reads your uploaded document to identify case details, party information, and form titles, and recommends the matching court location, case category, case type, and filing codes so you have less to type.
• You can opt out of AI: Using AI is completely optional. You can opt out of AI assistance at any time—either for a specific filing or by saving a setting to keep AI off for your entire account. Opting out will not delay or prevent your filing. If you opt out, we will only check your document with standard text search for printed form or case numbers, or you can enter all information yourself.
• AI can make mistakes and must be verified: AI can make mistakes and you should verify the information it gives you. It can omit details or suggest incorrect filing options, and AI suggestions are assistive tools that do not constitute legal advice or establish an attorney-client relationship. You are responsible for reviewing and confirming all information before submitting your filing, and you may need to correct a mistake if pointed out to you by a court clerk. The court, clerk, or judge decides whether a filing is accepted and legally sufficient, not LITEfile or the AI.
• Your documents are never used to train an AI system: Your documents, case information, and personal data are never used to train, retrain, or improve any public or private AI system or machine learning model.
• Quality monitoring by approved staff: Approved LITEfile staff may monitor AI performance manually from time to time to evaluate accuracy and improve the tool. Any manual review is conducted under strict confidentiality and access controls by authorized personnel.
• Enterprise AI and data rights: We use enterprise AI and you keep all rights to your data. We connect exclusively to enterprise-tier AI services governed by commercial confidentiality and strict data-protection agreements. You retain full ownership, copyright, and all rights to your documents and information.
• Handled securely in both directions: All information transmitted to and from enterprise AI services is protected by encryption in transit and at rest, handled under strict access controls, and retained only as long as necessary to process your filing. In rare cases, the AI service provider may review data for safety and abuse monitoring as permitted by their enterprise terms of service. Such reviews do not include training on your data.
• Supported AI models and provider list: To maintain security, reliability, and accuracy, LITEfile deploys vetted enterprise models and may update them over time. You can review our current list of supported AI models and approved enterprise provider configurations in our technical documentation (as of September 2026; subject to periodic updates for security, quality, and performance).

Keeping your information safe and private

We take reasonable technical and administrative steps to keep your information safe and private. These steps include HTTPS encryption for information in transit, access controls, software firewalls, monitoring, security updates, and limiting access to authorized personnel who need it to operate or improve LITEfile.

No internet service can guarantee absolute security. If you believe your information has been accessed improperly, contact us promptly so we can investigate and respond.

Changes and general terms

We may update these terms and this privacy policy when the service, law, or court requirements change. Continued use of LITEfile after an update means that you accept the updated terms.

If a court finds one provision unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply. These terms are governed by the law that applies to the service and the configured jurisdiction, without limiting any rights that cannot legally be waived.

Questions or privacy requests

You can ask us to delete a particular filing's data or the data associated with your LITEfile account through the contact channel below. We verify your identity and authority before processing a request. Accounts in different jurisdictions are handled separately. Deleting LITEfile's copies does not withdraw a filing, erase a court record, or delete your account with the court's filing service. We may need to resolve a filing still in progress, shared records, retention requirements, or backup and provider-held copies before confirming what has been deleted.

Contact the Suffolk LIT Lab at litlab@suffolk.edu (Suffolk University Law School LIT Lab, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA) .