Dear customers, friends, supporters,

We have made the difficult decision to shut down operations at ROSS Intelligence. As of Monday of this week, we have no longer been accepting new customers. As of January 31, 2021, the ROSS platform will no longer be available. Between now and then, our priority is to help our current customers transition to other services.

What happened

Six years ago, we set out to make legal services more accessible by innovating legal research. We felt then, as we do today, that legal research could be more efficient, less expensive, and more accessible. 

Since then, we’ve created a product that legal researchers love. We’ve worked with amazing partners to make legal research tasks more efficient and delightful. At every turn, we’ve been grateful to receive lawyers’ and other legal researchers’ feedback to shape ROSS’s development. We’ve been honored to serve legal researchers in many contexts across the U.S.: lawyers in large firms and small firms; solo practitioners; students; pro se litigants; academics; librarians; and more.

In the spring of this year, Thomson Reuters and Westlaw brought a spurious lawsuit against ROSS. When the news broke, we were grateful to receive so much community support. However, just as Westlaw devised it to be, this ongoing suit has been heavy for ROSS to bear. Litigation is expensive — no matter how speculative the claims against you nor how worthy your position. With our company ensnared by this legal battle, we have been unable to raise another round of funding to fuel our development and marketing efforts. Our bank account is running out, and we must cease operations in the New Year.

What this means for our customers

ROSS will continue to be available as it is today until January 31, 2021. Each customer will be able to export their personal data, including all data from their saved folders, beginning in January. We will be working with our customers to transition them to other services — including platforms by our friends at Fastcase, vLex and Casetext. If you are a user, please follow the instructions available in this link.

What this means for the legal industry

We have not abandoned our vision for access to justice through the use of technology. We will continue to fight the good fight.

However, we are now pursuing that vision in the courthouse rather than the marketplace. Although we are out of funds for our operations, ROSS has insurance for our litigation costs. The company will continue as a going concern so that the facts at the heart of this lawsuit are brought to light and so that Westlaw’s tactics — using litigation as a weapon and stifling competition — do not succeed.

We hope that by continuing in this way, the precedent this court case sets will inspire innovation rather than shut down competition. We must go, but we will not go gently.

Andrew Arruda, Jimoh Ovbiagele, Pargles Dall’Oglio, and the ROSS team

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