Privacy & Terms

The short version

• We never see or store what you type into the practice box. It stays in your browser.
• Nothing you do here is scored, timed, or ranked.
• No advertising, no analytics, no trackers, no data sold or shared for marketing — ever.
• You must be 18 or older to use it.
• Ask us to delete your data and we will, in full.

1. What we collect

If you sign in

Signing in uses Google. We never see or store your password. From Google we receive, and store, only:

• Your Google account identifier — a stable ID Google uses for your account. It is how we recognize you on your next visit.
• Your email address (we accept only verified addresses) and your display name.

That is the whole of it: no contacts, no calendar, no Drive, no profile photo, no other Google data. We request only the basic sign-in permissions (openid, email, profile).

As you practice

• The dates you practiced — the calendar day a focused session started, and nothing more. Not how long, not how much, not how fast. This is what the consistency streak counts.
• Which passages you have opened, and when you last opened each one — so you are shown passages you have not seen yet, and can go back to ones you have. This is navigation state, not a score.
• Curation marks — if your account has curator permissions (currently only the site's author), the keep/flag judgments made about a passage are stored against your account. These are judgments about the brief, not about you.

What we deliberately do NOT collect

The text you type into the practice box is never sent to us. It is held in your own browser only, so a page reload or a layout switch doesn't lose your work, and it is discarded when you close the tab. It never reaches our server and is never stored. There is no typing speed, no accuracy measurement, no keystroke recording, and no score of any kind — by design, and permanently (see The method on our home page).

If you send feedback

The "Share a thought" form stores the text you write, the page you were on when you opened it, the time, and your account. Please don't put confidential client information in it.

If you join the waitlist

We store your email address, the date, and which page it came from. It is used for one thing: telling you when Great Legal Writing opens. It is not sold, rented, shared, or added to any third-party marketing platform.

Server logs

Like any web server, ours records each request: IP address, time, the page requested, and your browser's user-agent string. These logs are kept for about 14 days and then deleted automatically. They are used for security and debugging, never for analytics or profiling.

2. Cookies

One cookie, and only if you sign in: a signed session cookie that keeps you logged in. It is strictly functional — remove it and you are simply signed out. There are no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies, and no third-party cookies, because there are no third parties on this site.

3. Who else touches your data

Almost nobody. In full:

• Google — only as the sign-in provider. Google knows you signed in to this site; that is inherent to using a Google account. Your practice activity is never sent to Google.
• DigitalOcean — our hosting provider. The server and its database sit on a single machine in the United States.

There is no analytics provider, no advertising network, no email marketing platform, no content delivery network, and no embedded fonts, scripts, or pixels from anyone else. Our pages load nothing from a third-party server. We do not sell or rent personal information, and we never will.

4. Where it is kept, and for how long

Everything lives in a single database file on one server in the United States, reachable only over an encrypted connection and administered only by the site's author. Your account data is kept for as long as you have an account. Waitlist addresses are kept until launch, or until you ask us to remove yours. Server logs expire after about 14 days.

No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure, and we won't pretend otherwise — but the amount of data here is deliberately tiny, which is the best protection there is.

5. Your choices

Email privacy@greatlegalwriting.com to:

• See everything stored about you — we'll send it to you.
• Correct anything that's wrong.
• Delete your account and all of it: your identity, your practice days, your passage history, and your feedback. This is permanent, and we do it in full — no shadow copy is kept.
• Come off the waitlist — say the word and the row is gone.

We'll respond as promptly as we can; this is a one-person project, so please allow a few days.

6. Age — 18 and over only

Great Legal Writing is intended for law students, lawyers, and other adults practicing a professional craft. You must be at least 18 years old to use it or to join the waitlist. The service is not directed to children, we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18, and if we learn that we have, we will delete it. If you believe a minor has given us information, please write to privacy@greatlegalwriting.com.

7. Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change is significant and we hold your email address, we'll tell you before it takes effect.

Terms of use

Short, plain, and interim — Great Legal Writing is a free beta. These will be expanded before the service ever charges for anything.

Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old. By signing in or joining the waitlist, you confirm that you are.

What this is

A practice instrument for legal writing. You read a passage and reproduce it yourself in order to notice how it is built. It is not legal advice, not a course, not a credential, and not a substitute for legal education or professional judgment. Nothing here creates an attorney–client relationship.

The practice texts

The passages are drawn from briefs filed with the Supreme Court of the United States by the Office of the Solicitor General — public filings, available from justice.gov. They are presented for study. Great Legal Writing is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Department of Justice, the Office of the Solicitor General, or the Supreme Court of the United States.

Using it fairly

Please don't attempt to break, overload, or gain unauthorized access to the service, and don't scrape it wholesale. Use the practice texts for your own learning.

Beta, as-is

This is an early free beta run by one person. It may be unavailable, may lose data, and may change or end at any time. It is provided as-is, without warranties, and we're not liable for losses arising from using it. Keep your own copy of anything you'd be sorry to lose — though note that we never hold your writing in the first place.

Accounts

Access is currently by invitation while the beta is closed. We may close or suspend an account that is being used abusively.

Questions

Write to privacy@greatlegalwriting.com.