Methodology
Our state pages are built from source data, not from generic memory. Attorney review is in progress and is labeled honestly until a licensed reviewer is under contract.
Source standard
The first source for a state legal fact is the official statute or official state source when available. We then cross-check against another source before a fact is rendered on a state page.
Verified and preliminary data
Every state in our data carries one of two labels. A Verified state has its deadline, penalty rule, deposit cap, small claims limit, and statute citation read from the official state source and cross-checked against a second source before we publish a page for it. A Preliminary state has been harvested from official statute text but has not yet cleared full editorial verification, so we do not publish a standalone page for it and we do not include it in the machine readable data files. The public dataset you can download contains verified states only.
How to check our work
Each state page links directly to the official statute it relies on and shows the date the fact was last verified. Every change to the underlying data and to each page is recorded in version control, so any figure can be traced back to the source and the day it was confirmed. If you find a discrepancy with your state law, tell us and we will re-check against the official source.
Independent review passes
State facts go through separate review passes before publication. If sources conflict, the page should fail closed until the conflict is resolved. We do not use support pages for state-specific legal facts.
Freshness and versions
State pages show a Last verified date. That date should change only when the underlying fact has been checked again. Source data and page changes are versioned in git so corrections can be traced.
Attorney review
Attorney review is in progress. Until a real attorney review contract is in place, pages do not name a lawyer, claim attorney approval, or publish a reviewer biography.