For people who file pro se
Pro Se, Not Solo.
Inference Legal is legal research and document software for people who go to court without a lawyer. You decide what to file. The software helps you research it, draft it, and keep to the court's deadlines.
Inference Legal is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. We employ no attorneys, and no attorney–client relationship is created by using this site or our software. Our products are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
We provide general legal information and self-help software. We do not review your answers for legal sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, or apply the law to the facts of your particular situation. If you need advice about your specific problem, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.
Self-representation is not the exception. It is the ordinary case.
The civil courts were built on the assumption that both sides arrive with counsel. That assumption stopped being true a long time ago.
No fooling around
What the software actually does
Three things, stated plainly. No robot lawyers, no promises about your case, no fine print doing the work the headline should have done.
Research, with the citation attached
Our engine reads published court opinions, statutes, and rules of procedure, and returns what it finds with a citation to the source every time.
Every authority links back to the public record so you can read it yourself before you rely on it.
Drafting, at your direction
You choose the form and the claim. The software completes the document at your direction, in the structure the rules require — numbered paragraphs, a caption, a signature block.[4]
It does not choose your claim for you, and it does not tell you whether you should file.
The calendar the rules impose
Civil procedure runs on deadlines. An answer is due 21 days after service; a defendant not served within 90 days may be dismissed.[5]
The software tracks the dates your rules impose and shows you the rule that imposes them.
You are the one who signs.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a), every paper must be signed by a party personally if that party is unrepresented. When you sign, you certify to the court that your claims are warranted and that your factual contentions have evidentiary support.[6]
That signature is yours. It cannot be delegated to us, and we do not stand behind it. It is the reason the software is built to show you its sources rather than ask you to trust its conclusions.
Verify every citation before you file.
Generative AI systems produce citations that do not exist. Courts have imposed sanctions for filing them: in Mata v. Avianca, the Southern District of New York sanctioned counsel for submitting non-existent judicial opinions produced by ChatGPT.[7]
Self-represented litigants are now the largest category of filers caught doing this. We link every authority to the public record for exactly one reason: so that you can check it, and so that checking is easy.
The rules are public. The forms are free. The work is the hard part.
The federal courts publish fifteen official fill-in-the-blank complaint forms for people without lawyers.[8] Nobody hides them. What stops people is knowing which facts matter, and what the rules demand next.
Sources
- National Center for State Courts, The Landscape of Civil Litigation in State Courts (2015), Table 11, p. 32 — 925,344 cases disposed across 152 courts in 10 urban counties, 2012–13. Report PDF. This remains the most recent national measurement of self-representation rates; it is a decade old and we date it wherever we cite it.
- Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap: The Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans (2022), based on 2021 survey data collected by NORC at the University of Chicago. Executive summary. The figure describes low-income Americans specifically, not the general population.
- Clio, Legal Trends Report (2025), average hourly rates by practice area, stated as of 2025. Rate comparison.
- Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) (a pleading must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief"); Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b) (claims must be stated "in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances"). Rule 8 · Rule 10.
- Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(a)(1)(A)(i) (answer due "within 21 days after being served with the summons and complaint"); Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m) (a defendant not served within 90 days must be dismissed without prejudice, or service ordered within a specified time). Rule 12 · Rule 4. Deadlines in state courts differ; the software follows the rules of the court you select.
- Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(a), (b). Rule 11. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1654 (parties "may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel"). § 1654.
- Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) (Castel, J.) (Rule 11 sanctions for submitting non-existent judicial opinions generated by ChatGPT). Docket.
- Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Civil Pro Se Forms — fifteen official forms, effective December 1, 2016. Forms index · Pro Se 1, Complaint for a Civil Case.