Trellis Review, Pricing & Alternatives (2026)

Trellis was founded in Los Angeles by Nicole Clark, a former litigator who is its CEO, to make state trial court records searchable. Most legal research services center on appellate opinions, while most litigation happens in state trial courts, where dockets and rulings are scattered across county systems. Trellis collects and structures those records, and the company says it now holds more than 2.5 billion state trial court records, describing it as the largest such dataset in the US. It raised a $15 million Series B led by Top Tier Capital Partners in 2023. Customers include litigation firms, corporate legal departments, insurers and academic users.

The core product is Smart Search across dockets, rulings and documents, with filters by court, judge, cause of action and party. Trellis says it covers state trial courts in 45 states, with county-level coverage that varies, and it expanded alerts to federal courts in 2025. Judge Analytics shows how a judge has ruled on motion types, typical timelines and outcomes, and Judge Bios add background. Attorney Analysis profiles opposing counsel's motion history and settlement patterns. Alerts track new filings against clients, competitors or topics. Some documents are free in the subscription, some can be requested in Los Angeles and Cook counties, and others are purchased per document.

Trellis AI launched in November 2024 and was embedded across search, case pages and documents in July 2025. Draft Arguments suggests arguments for a motion to dismiss or summary judgment by cause of action, drawn from filed motions with similar facts. Case Strategy Reports generate risk factors, likely defenses and next steps when a new lawsuit is filed. Motion Guide finds sample motions matching a case. Other tools analyze complaints, build timelines and extract citations. In July 2026 Trellis added a ChatGPT plugin and Trellis Chat, following its MCP connector for Claude, so AI agents can search its records, check outcomes and cite sources.

Trellis charges by subscription with monthly content view limits. Personal costs $80 a month or $768 a year, with 720 annual content views and single-state coverage. Research costs $140 a month or $1,344 a year with 1,200 views. Research and Judge Analytics costs $210 a month or $2,016 a year with 2,100 views and full analytics. Law firm, corporate and academic plans are priced by quote, with unlimited accounts and flexible view limits. Verdicts data and the daily filings report are paid add-ons on some plans. A 14-day free trial includes up to 75 content views and five document requests.

Trellis fills a gap that Westlaw, Lexis+ AI and Bloomberg Law cover less deeply, since its data comes from trial court filings rather than published opinions. The drawbacks are uneven coverage between counties, content view limits that can run out on heavy research, and paid document purchases. Lex Machina offers litigation analytics focused on federal courts, Docket Alarm tracks dockets across federal and state courts, and Westlaw and Lexis+ AI provide broad research with AI assistants. Harvey and CoCounsel handle general legal drafting. Choose Trellis if you litigate in state courts and want data on how specific judges and opposing counsel behave.