Frequently asked questions

A technology and matching service that connects Massachusetts firms and attorneys who need a court appearance covered with bar-verified, insured coverage attorneys who can take it — usually within hours.

No. CourtDateCoverage is not a law firm, is not a party to any attorney-client relationship, and does not provide legal advice. It's a matching and billing platform between independent attorneys and firms.

Massachusetts today. Expansion to other New England states is planned but not yet available — court and pricing rules are currently built around Massachusetts courts specifically.

Any licensed attorney in active good standing, either as a requesting firm (a firm or solo practitioner who needs coverage) or a coverage attorney (an attorney who takes on appearances for others), or both.

Yes. An account can be set up for both roles, so the same attorney can post a request when they need coverage and accept broadcasts to cover other firms' hearings.

Solo practitioners can register as a one-person firm. The platform treats solo and multi-attorney firms the same way, just with a firm type of "solo" instead of "multi-attorney."

Firm registration completes immediately — you can submit a case request as soon as you sign up. Bar and background verification for coverage attorneys happens separately, run by admin afterward, and doesn't block early acceptance of work.

No. There's no account fee or subscription — firms pay per case request (see Pricing & Fees), and coverage attorneys are paid per case they cover.

Not yet — sign-up and login currently use email and password only.

Use the "Forgot password" link on the login page. You'll get a reset email with a link that lets you set a new password.

Additional attorneys can request to join your firm; a firm admin approves or denies the request. Only approved members can submit case requests or manage billing on the firm's behalf.

It's the email address invoices and payment-failure notices go to. If you don't set one explicitly, it falls back to the firm's admin member's email.

Each firm member has a role — admin or standard member. Multiple members can hold the admin role, and any of them can approve join requests or manage the firm's payment method.

An archived firm can't submit new case requests, but nothing about its case history is touched — past requests, matches, and billing records stay intact and visible.

Only if the firm has no case history at all. A firm with any past or current requests can be archived, but not deleted, so billing and case records are never lost.

Direct bank deposit is the only billing method right now, set up from your firm's billing page. Card and ACH-via-Stripe are temporarily unavailable.

Yes — the Requesting Firm Service Agreement is accepted once at sign-up. If the terms are ever updated, your firm keeps operating under the version it originally accepted; you're not forced to re-accept for continuity.

Yes, your firm's member list shows every attorney tied to the account, their role, and their approval status.

From "Request hearing," fill in the court, jurisdiction, case name, hearing date and time, hearing type, and the scope of work you need the covering attorney to handle, then submit.

Scope of work is shown to coverage attorneys before they accept, so they know what's being asked of them. Case summary and desired outcome are privileged and stay hidden until a match is confirmed.

So attorneys can check for a conflict of interest before attesting to one — the case name alone is usually enough for that check, without exposing privileged case details before there's a confirmed match.

Yes, but only after confirming client consent to share case materials with a covering attorney. Without that confirmation, you can still submit the request — you just can't attach documents to it.

They're priced and routed differently. Criminal matters can be in-person (District or Superior Court) or virtual; civil matters — general civil, debt collection, small claims, and bankruptcy — are virtual-only today.

Not yet — civil case types are virtual-only. In-person coverage is currently only available for criminal matters.

Debt collection, small claims, and bankruptcy let you tag what kind of civil matter it is; all three price and stack identically to general civil, so choosing one doesn't change your cost.

Trials, motions to suppress, evidentiary hearings, and similar substantive proceedings. Flagging a hearing complex takes it out of the automatic fee table — admin sets that case's rate individually instead.

Not directly. If something changes before it's matched, contact support or cancel and resubmit; once a request is matched, changes go through the covering attorney and admin.

Yes, a request can be cancelled before it's matched. Once an attorney has accepted and confirmed, cancelling works differently — see Cancellations, No-Shows & Reassignment.

It depends on attorney availability for that court and time, but most requests are broadcast to eligible attorneys immediately and matched within hours.

Yes. Admin can broadcast a still-open request to additional coverage attorneys at any point, even after it's already gone out to someone else — only one of them can actually accept it.

Through the coverage attorney sign-up flow, where you provide your bar state and bar number and attest to your malpractice insurance coverage as part of the wizard.

No — you can accept a broadcast before your bar status is verified. Verification is checked before admin gives the final confirmation on a match, giving admin time to complete it without blocking early acceptance.

Annually. Your insurance attestation expires 365 days after you sign it, and you'll need to re-attest to keep taking new matches.

Yes, you can add availability blocks, including recurring ones, from your coverage dashboard.

Your account can be archived by admin so you stop receiving new broadcasts, without losing your case history.

Admin runs a bar check against the state and bar number you provided, either automated or manually confirmed, and separately reviews your insurance attestation before finalizing any match.

Yes — there's no limit on which Massachusetts courts you can be broadcast requests for, as long as you're eligible and available.

Yes — the Coverage Attorney Agreement is accepted once at sign-up and governs the paid coverage relationship, including fees, payouts, cancellation, and confidentiality.

It appears in your coverage inbox as a pending broadcast, showing the court, date/time, hearing type, case name, and scope of work so you can decide before accepting.

A quick declaration of whether you have a conflict of interest with the case, based on the case name and court shown to you — required before your acceptance is final.

No. Acceptance is atomic — the instant one attorney accepts, the request is locked to them and every other pending broadcast for that same request is automatically closed out as "matched to another attorney."

You move to a "Confirm your appearance" step — a final conflict check plus a checkbox to confirm you're taking the appearance (or cancel with a required reason) — before the case file and documents unlock.

Privileged case details (case summary, desired outcome, documents) stay locked until you've acknowledged confidentiality — a separate, required step after accepting, logged with your typed name and timestamp.

A required attestation, distinct from the conflict check, that you understand the case materials are confidential — you type your full name to sign it, and it's timestamped and logged before any document becomes visible to you.

Yes — you can deny it, optionally with a reason if there's a conflict of interest, and it simply won't be matched to you.

As many as are broadcast to and accepted by you — additional criminal cases at the same court on the same day automatically stack at a discounted rate. Civil cases stack too, but only when they share the exact same date and time, capped at 7.

Yes, an estimated first-case rate is shown in the broadcast based on case type, appearance mode, and court level — the exact final amount is confirmed once sequencing/stacking is settled.

File a report sheet — an outcome summary, any next date, and the court's ruling if applicable. Filing it is what queues your payment for that case.

The report sheet page only opens starting a moment after the hearing's scheduled start time — it can't be filed early.

You'll get an automatic reminder email if it's still unfiled 12 hours after the hearing. Filing late doesn't forfeit payment, but it does delay it.

Case type (criminal or civil), appearance mode, and court level all factor in, along with how you submit your requests — cases you stack together in one submission qualify for a discount. Your exact price is shown when you're signed in and submitting a request.

Yes. Cases that share the exact same court, date, and time get a discount as a group. Other cases submitted together in the same sitting, even at different courts or times, still qualify for a smaller group discount. A single case on its own is charged the standard rate.

No — they price exactly like general civil. Choosing a sub-category is for classification, not pricing.

Criminal cases stack for the covering attorney across an entire calendar day at the same court, with no cap. Civil cases only stack for the attorney when they share the exact same court, date, AND time — the same docket call — and are capped at 7 per slot. This is separate from the firm's own stacking discount, which is based on how the cases were submitted, not on which attorney ends up covering them.

An 8th case at that exact court, date, and time is rejected at submission — you'll be prompted to submit it as a separate request instead of joining that stack.

Together — all four civil categories share one stacking pool.

Individually. Complex/substantive hearings are pulled out of the automatic pricing entirely — admin negotiates and sets that specific case's firm fee and attorney payout by hand.

Yes — the platform's margin on every case is the difference between what the firm is charged and what the attorney is paid.

Standard rates are fixed and apply automatically. Only complex/substantive hearings are priced individually, by agreement between admin and the covering attorney.

They can, with notice. Cases already matched keep the rate that applied when they were priced.

Because the covering attorney is already making the trip (or already logged in for a virtual docket) — the discount reflects the marginal cost of one more appearance in the same session, not a separate trip.

Biweekly — one combined, itemized invoice covering every case completed since your last billing cycle, not a separate charge per case.

Direct bank deposit only, right now — no Stripe involved, no processing fee. Card and ACH-via-Stripe are temporarily unavailable.

No — direct bank deposit, the only billing method right now, has no processing fee at all.

A way to pay with zero processing fees by wiring or depositing funds straight into our business bank account instead of going through Stripe. Choose it from your firm's billing page — we'll then send you our account details directly rather than displaying them in the app, for security. Each invoice is confirmed manually once the deposit clears, since there's no automated confirmation the way a Stripe charge has.

Yes, every billing batch on your firm's billing history expands to show each case's court, date, and fee that went into that invoice.

It's automatically retried on a schedule — roughly 3, 5, and 7 days after the failure — so a single failed charge never blocks you from submitting new requests. This retry schedule applies to card/ACH charges; direct bank deposit has no charge to retry, just a manual confirmation once admin sees it clear.

Only if it stays unresolved for 30 straight days, at which point your firm's account is marked restricted and new requests are blocked until the payment method is fixed. A single failure alone does not block you.

Your firm's payment status is shown on your billing page and in admin's view of your firm — active, failed, or restricted.

There's no processing fee to absorb right now — direct bank deposit, the only billing method available, has none.

Direct bank deposit is the only billing method right now — card and ACH-via-Stripe are temporarily unavailable, so there's nothing to switch between.

Monthly, on the last calendar day of the month, for every case with a filed report sheet whose payment has already succeeded on the firm side.

Mailed paper check, right now — the only payout method available. Processed on the same monthly schedule as everything else.

No, not currently, for either method. If Stripe ever introduces a fee on standard transfers, it would come out of the payout amount — never out of the platform's own revenue.

Paper check is the only payout method right now, so there's nothing to switch to — Stripe payouts are temporarily unavailable.

Payouts only go out once the firm's charge for that case has actually succeeded and your report sheet is filed — a failed or still-retrying firm charge will delay your payout for that specific case.

Yes, your coverage dashboard shows payout statements by batch, each expandable to the individual cases and amounts included.

No — paper check, the only payout method right now, needs no Stripe account at all.

Court, jurisdiction, hearing date and type, scope of work, and the case name — enough to check for conflicts and decide whether to accept, without exposing privileged case details.

After they accept, confirm their appearance, and complete the confidentiality acknowledgment — a required, logged attestation that comes before any document unlocks.

It's a typed, timestamped attestation logged against that specific match, governed by the confidentiality terms in the Coverage Attorney Agreement.

Yes, as long as you confirmed client consent when the request was submitted — you can keep attaching documents to that request from its detail page.

You can still submit the request and have it covered — you just won't be able to attach any documents to it.

Only your firm and the specific covering attorney once matched and confidentiality-acknowledged — never other attorneys who were broadcast the request but didn't accept it.

At two points: an initial attestation when accepting the broadcast, and a final conflict check at the "Confirm your appearance" step, right before the case file unlocks.

They can cancel at the confirm-appearance step or later, with a required reason — the request is then automatically re-broadcast to other eligible attorneys.

Yes, any time before a report sheet has been filed, by providing a required cancellation reason.

The request automatically re-broadcasts to every other eligible attorney immediately — no admin step is required to get it back in front of new attorneys.

Less than 24 hours' notice before the scheduled hearing — recorded on the match, along with the exact number of notice hours given.

It's recorded on their history and visible to admin. Persistent late cancellations may be reviewed as part of eligibility for future broadcasts.

Yes, before it's matched. Once a case is matched and confirmed, cancellation follows the coverage-attorney or admin cancellation flow instead.

A covering attorney who doesn't appear for a confirmed match. It can be flagged by the firm directly or picked up passively by the system, then confirmed by admin.

A 24-hour grace period after the scheduled hearing gives the attorney time to still file a late report sheet before it's treated as a no-show.

It moves into admin's reassignment queue for review and rebroadcast to a new eligible attorney, rather than auto-reopening without oversight.

Yes, from the reassignment or matches queue, admin can void an existing match and reopen the request to be rebroadcast.

Yes — both the firm and any newly broadcast attorneys are notified as the request moves through cancellation, reassignment, and rematching.

Admin checks the state and bar number provided at sign-up, either through an automated check or a manual override, and records the result on the attorney's profile.

No — you can accept a broadcast before you're verified. Verification is checked before admin gives the final confirmation on that specific match, not before acceptance.

A signed statement from the coverage attorney confirming they carry malpractice insurance, dated and stored on their profile, expiring 365 days after signing.

You'll need to re-attest before taking new matches — it's checked the same way bar verification is, ahead of a match being finally confirmed.

A green checkmark on the firm's view of an attorney indicates verified bar status; unverified attorneys are shown without it.

Contact support — admin reviews it manually and can correct or re-run the check; a failed automated check doesn't permanently block you.

Bar verification itself doesn't expire, but insurance attestation does (annually), and admin can re-review either at any time.

Bar and background checks in this flow are specifically about coverage attorneys taking on appearances — requesting firms aren't put through the same verification gate to submit a request.

An outcome summary of what happened at the hearing, any next hearing date, and the court's ruling if one was issued.

Yes — once filed, it's visible on the firm's results history for that case, along with the covering attorney's name and the case details.

Yes, it's what queues the case's payment on both sides — the firm's charge and the attorney's payout both key off a filed report sheet.

Report sheets are meant to be filed once, accurately, after the hearing — contact support if you need a correction made to a filed report.

Your coverage dashboard's case history lists every completed match with its outcome and payout amount.

Your main dashboard view focuses on upcoming cases; completed ones move to a separate history/results view so the active list stays focused on what's still ahead.

The platform is built on infrastructure with encryption in transit and at rest for stored data; privileged case details are additionally access-gated behind confirmation and confidentiality acknowledgment.

Only your firm's approved members, the specific matched coverage attorney (once confirmed), and platform admin — no other coverage attorney who was broadcast but didn't accept ever sees privileged fields.

From your account settings, or via the "Forgot password" reset flow if you're locked out.

Email support@courtdatecoverage.com — requests are reviewed and acted on where possible, though some records (like billing history tied to completed engagements) may need to be retained.

Try a hard refresh first. If it persists, email support@courtdatecoverage.com with the page, what you were doing, and a screenshot if you have one.

Check spam/junk first, then confirm the email on file for your account or firm's billing contact is correct. If it's still missing, contact support.

Yes — contact support and, depending on your role, your account or firm can be archived so it stops receiving new work while your history stays intact.

Email support@courtdatecoverage.com with the case or invoice in question — billing and payout issues are handled directly by the team, not automatically.