Your access and use of TRAIAL's websites, mobile applications, products, and services (collectively, the "Services") is subject to these terms and conditions (“Terms”), as well as to our Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines.
We will inform you of any update to these Terms through our platform; further use of our Services after such notification shall be considered as an acceptance of those Terms.
Date of these Terms of Use: 19.03.2019
In order to be able to use our Services, you need to open an account on our platform, which requires you to be of the age of majority in your country of residence.
If you are using the Services on behalf of an entity, you need to ensure that you are duly authorized to represent such entity as the registration will take place under the name and on behalf of that entity.
You will have to provide us with the following information marked with an asterix when you open an account; additional information may be provided at your discretion:
The use of our Services shall require you to provide your credit card details for billing purposes. For further details on your account creation, please read our Privacy Policy.
While your registration will enable you to use our Services, it will not give you any right in such Services or in the content you may have access to, which is solely owned by TRAIAL. You are not allowed to use the TRAIAL brand or logos without our express prior written approval.
TRAIAL enables you to ask for a legal advice by a professional having at a minimum obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree in your country of residence.
The pricing of the questions depends on the number of characters and documents attached (see below under number 7).
The answer provided by the legal provider you have chosen is intended to be practical, concise, and depends on the information you have provided, so that it is up to you to be precise enough in your explanations to obtain an answer capable of satisfying your needs. If necessary, the legal provider may request further information from you in order to be able to answer as accurately as possible; Conversely, you are entitled to seek a brief clarification in relation to the answer provided if you find it useful.
In the event that your case requires the hiring of a lawyer, the legal provider will mention it in his response. TRAIAL will allow you, if you wish, to take advantage of the necessary legal support at reasonable prices, as defined below under number 7 "At what price can I benefit from the Services? "
While most questions are allowed, you are not allowed to seek advice to engage in an obvious illegal activity, notably criminal ones, such as: pedophilia, hard pornography, drug or human traffic, incentive to hatred discourse or physical violence, trouble to public order or acts of terrorism.
The providers affiliated to the platform all have at a minimum obtained a Bachelor degree of Law from a Law School of your country of residence or equivalent diploma. Affiliation to the platform can only takes place after having gone through a background check and assessment by TRAIAL.
The providers are not all qualified as lawyers and may for instance have acquired their expertise after having worked for several years in the private sector (companies, insurances, banks) or public authorities.
When you choose the standard mode (the default mode), TRAIAL will try to provide you with the choice between three legal providers who are willing to answer your question and who have been pre-selected according to their area of expertise.
You will then have to choose among the three pre-selected providers the one who will answer your question; the concerned provider will be informed through the platform.
If less than three providers are willing to answer your question four hours after you have submitted it, TRAIAL will inform you of the provider (s) who agreed to answer your question.
When you choose the express mode as defined below (see number 6: "How soon can I get an answer to my question?"), no choice is offered to you, and the provider who first accepts to answer your question will automatically be chosen to answer it.
If you have already had recourse to a given provider in the past and would like the same provider to answer your new question, you are free to mention it, in which case the provider will be informed of your interest and may, if he/she wishes, express his/her interest to continue with you within 2 hours. If he/she does not wish or does not answer within 2 hours, the standard process defined above will be engaged.
Standard Mode (by default): once you have selected a provider willing to respond to your question, the concerned provider will respond to your question within the same day if such a selection took place before midday, respectively within 24 hours if such appointment took place after midday; provided, however, that any appointment taking place over the week-end shall be answered on the next business day.
Express mode (if selected): should you opt for the express mode, the provider will have 4 hours to respond to your question once you have been notified that a provider has accepted your request.
The selected provider is entitled to invite you to clarify your question(s) so as to be able to provider an answer in the most valuable way possible. Similarly, you are entitled to request a follow-up clarification as a result of the answer to ensure full satisfaction. Any further exchange is however prohibited.
As principal, you may change the terms of the mandate vis-à-vis the provider before submitting your question, in which case it is your responsibility to report such modifications in the "Remarks".
Payment for the Services shall take place in advance through credit card. Your credit card will ONLY be debited once you have appointed a provider to answer your question or, in the express mode, once a provider has accepted to respond to your request.
Opening an account on TRAIAL enable you to access and benefit from the Services offered by the providers through the platform. TRAIAL acts as an intermediary to enable the transaction to be directly entered into by you and the provider appointed to answer your question.
From a legal standpoint, the submission of your question is considered as an offer to contract. The contract is actually concluded when you choose the provider who will answer your question, providers having accepted your offer only doing so on the condition, suspensive, to be chosen as the final provider.
You are liable for paying the provider. You hereby appoint TRAIAL as your agent to process the payment in favor of the provider on your behalf. Furthermore, you understand that TRAIAL cannot be held responsible for the quality or accuracy of any information or legal services provided by the provider(s) you connect with via TRAIAL.
Each time you use our Services, you will have to provide a rating of the provider having answered your question when prompted to do so. In the absence of such rating, you will not be able to further use our Services.
A TRAIAL rating reflects an aggregation of users’ assessment of a given provider, based upon the information obtained by or submitted by users having benefitted from the Services of the concerned provider. Someone else's assessment of the same provider may be very different, or be based upon different information. Such rating is not an endorsement of any particular provider, and is not a guarantee of a provider’s quality, competency, or character. As a consequence, any rating should not be considered as a predictor of the outcome of any matter in which such provider is involved. Rather, the TRAIAL rating is intended to be a starting point to gather information about providers who may be suitable for your legal needs.
TRAIAL EXCLUDES ITS LIABILITY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW WITH REGARDS TO YOUR ACCESS AND USE OF THE PLATFORM AND RELATED SERVICES.
When you post reviews and ratings related to the provider having responded to one of your requests (“User Content”), you give TRAIAL and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content throughout the world in any media. If you submit feedback or suggestions about our Services, we may use your feedback or suggestions without obligation to you.
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless TRAIAL, its affiliates and each of their respective directors, employees and agents, from and against any claims, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to any User Content you post, store or otherwise transmit on or through the Services or your use of or inability to use the Services, including without limitation any actual or threatened suit, demand or claim arising out of or relating to the User Content, your conduct, your violation of these Terms or your violation of the rights of any third party.
TRAIAL reserves the right, without notice and in its sole discretion, to terminate your license to use the Services, and to block or prevent your access to and use of the Services. The termination of your account shall not trigger any form of liability against TRAIAL.
ANY DISPUTE ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO SWISS LAW, AT THE EXCLUSION OF ITS PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW STATUTE, AND SUBJECT TO THE EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION OF THE TRIBUNAL DE L’ARRONDISSEMENT DE L’EST VAUDOIS, TO WHICH YOU HEREBY IRREVOCABLY AGREE TO BE SUBMITTED.
These terms and conditions of affiliation ("Terms") govern your affiliation to TRAIAL's websites, mobile applications, products, and services as a provider (collectively, the "Services"), so please read them carefully.
By accessing this website and affiliating to the Services, you are agreeing to the Terms, our Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines. If you have any questions, please contact us at the following email address: info@traial.ch.
These Terms may be updated from time to time, in which case you shall be informed of any such update through our platform; further use of our Services after such notification shall be considered as an acceptance of those Terms.
Date of current version: 19.03.2019
You may join TRAIAL as a provider only if you open an account on our platform and register accordingly. Such registration requires you to hold a Bachelor in Law or equivalent degree obtained in a recognized Law School in the country in which you intend to provide your Services. If you are using the Services on behalf of an entity, please ensure that you are duly authorized to represent such entity as the registration will take place under the name and on behalf of that entity.
The following information will be requested from you when you open an account:
You shall also be entitled to provide additional optional information at your discretion in your profile.
In order to control your diplomas and titles, you shall be requested to upload a copy of such diplomas through your account creation. Should you not be able to do so (loss of your diplomas for instance), please contact us at: info@traial.ch
Providing your bank account details shall enable TRAIAL or its service providers to process payments in your favor. For further details on your account creation, please read our Privacy Policy.
Joining our Services does however not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights in our Services or the content you access. Except in the context of browsing or accessing our Services in accordance with these Terms, you may not use content from our Services unless you obtain permission from us or are otherwise permitted by law. These Terms do not grant you the right to use any branding or logos used in our Services. Do not remove, obscure, or alter any legal notices displayed in or along with our Services.
TRAIAL is primarily thought of as allowing legal providers to offer their services to a broad audience in an independent manner, while being compensated for their services to the community, without jeopardizing their existing employment (if any).
In this case, it is your responsibility to ensure that your affiliation to the platform does not violate your duty of loyalty to your employer and, as a result, not to accept to answer questions that could be considered as creating a conflict of interest with your job.
It is furthermore your responsibility to ensure that the performance of your services on TRAIAL complies with your tax and social obligations.
As of the effective date of the Terms, the legal support you can provide through TRAIAL to users in your country of residence in different areas of laws is varied. It goes from answering a simple question to analyse contracts and further documents uploaded by users.
The assessment you provide is expected to be concise, reliable, of high quality in terms of content and resolve/answer as precisely as possible the questions raised from users and, if relevant and as much as possible, give guidance as to what the concrete next step for user could/should be, based upon the information received from users. Any in-depth assessment and reference to the case law or scholarly opinion that does not directly answer the question raised has to be avoided, as the objective consists of providing the user with a pragmatic answer to his question that can easily be put in action. Should the request require further clarification to enable you to provide a valuable answer, you are entitle to require such clarification through the platform. Should the case described require further support and assistance by a provider, you shall make a recommendation to that effect.
Services may be updated from time to time, in which case you shall be informed of any such update through our platform.
You can decide at your own discretion whether to accept or not a request made by a user that you have been informed about. In order to accept such request, you will have to login to the Services (be it our platform, mobile application or further channel) and access the backlog enabling you to click on the acceptance button. Accepting the request means that you commit to answer such request if the user selects you in accordance with the terms of the contract entered into between you and the user. Such terms shall correspond to the terms and conditions suggested by the platform, unless the user decides to hire a legal provider under different terms, in which case legal providers are informed about such deviations in the same time as the request is brought to your attention, thus prior to their acceptance; once you accept a request, withdrawing is not possible any more.
Bear in mind that each provider having mentioned an identical field of expertise will also be notified of any such request and that acceptance will take place on first come first served basis.
In the default standard option mode (see below section “6. How long do I have to provide my response to the request once the case is allocated to me?”), once three providers have accepted the request, you will not be able to click on the acceptance button anymore. The concerned user will then be notified about the choice offered to him/her by having the profiles of these specialists displayed. It is up to the user to select one of the providers; the lucky winner will then be notified by email and SMS about the allocation of the request to him or her.
In the express option mode (see below section “6. How long do I have to provide my response to the request once the case is allocated to me?”), the provider to first have accepted the request will be the one to which the request will be allocated.
When a user has already used your services in the past, he / she is given the opportunity to let you know that he / she wants to be able to work with you first. In this case, you will be notified first of the question asked by the user, his interest to work with you, and will have a period of 2 hours if you agree to provide your services to this user again. In case of refusal or no response within this time, the process described above will be engaged.
Standard Mode (by default): you commit to answer the request within the same day if you are notified of your selection before midday, respectively within 24 hours if such appointment takes place after midday; provided, however, that any appointment taking place over the week-end shall be answered on the next business day.
Express mode (if selected): you will have 4 hours to respond to your question once you have been notified of your selection. If the complexity of the request requires more time, and after having provided an initial response, you will have to agree on timing directly with the user to provide your final advice. Should TRAIAL however find out that you systematically require such an extension without any valid ground, and thus in an abusive manner, TRAIAL reserves its right to take any remedial action, including to terminate our relation and close your account.
As mentioned above, you are entitled to invite the user to clarify the question so that it can be answered as efficiently as possible. Similarly, the user is entitled to request a clarification to the answer you gave him to meet his expectations. Any additional exchange is however prohibited.
Compliance with the timeline stated above is key. TRAIAL shall be automatically notified about any non-compliance that shall result in a warning. After 3 warnings, TRAIAL reserves the right after having discussed with you to terminate your account so as to ensure the quality of the services provided through TRAIAL, in the interest of the TRAIAL community.
You shall provide your answer by email, which will be forwarded to the concerned user through the platform. Your answer will also automatically be forwarded to TRAIAL to be informed that such requests have been answers and ensure quality control of the answers provided, at TRAIAL’s sole and entire discretion.
You are not allowed to directly solicit users as part of an answer. Examples of direct solicitations are language such as "call me, contact me, go to my website for further information, etc." Similarly, do not add contact information or links to your website in answers or answer disclaimers.
Breach of these prohibitions shall result in the automatic termination of your account and access to the Services.
Users agree to pay you the following amounts, whose payment is fully guaranteed by TRAIAL as they will be pre-paid, and without any deduction made by TRAIAL :
| Question (number of characters) | Price (CHF, VAT incl.) | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| ≤ 200 | 18.75 | Price for a simple question, not requiring detailed explanations |
| > 200 ≤ 400 | 45 | Price for several simpe questions or requiring more detailed explanations |
| > 400 (max 700) | 90 | More complex case requiring a more detailed presentation and, where appropriate, several questions |
To this amount must be added the following price in case of attached document:
| Nature of the file uploaded | Price per page (CHF, VAT incl.) | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| Court ruling | 4.50 | Simple document, generally easy to read, essentially requiring a knowledge |
| Correspondence (mail, email, simple document) | 9 | As above |
| Contract, general terms | 16.5 | More complex document, possibly requiring more attention and reading time per page as a result of the density of the text (as the general conditions) |
Pricing examples :
| Question | Price | Uploaded file | Price | Total (VAT incl.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ≤ 200 | 18.75 | 0 | - | 18.75 |
| ≤ 200 | 18.75 | Correspondence 3 pages | 27 | 45.75 |
| ≤ 200 | 18.75 | Contract 5 pages | 82.50 | 101.25 |
| > 200 ≤ 400 | 45 | 0 | - | 45 |
| > 200 ≤ 400 | 45 | Correspondence 3 pages | 27 | 72 |
| > 200 ≤ 400 | 45 | Contract 5 pages | 82.50 | 127.50 |
| > 400 (max 700) | 90 | 0 | - | 90 |
| > 400 (max 700) | 90 | Correspondence 3 pages | 27 | 117 |
| > 400 (max 700) | 90 | Contract 5 pages | 82.50 | 172.50 |
When the user opt for express mode, the above prices are increased by 25%.
TRAIAL does not charge any commission on your remuneration.
In the event that the user decides to resort to the intervention of a lawyer affiliated with TRAIAL in relation to a question asked, you can then express your interest by submitting a lump sum quote for the processing of the file in parallel with other lawyers affiliated to the platform who will be notified of such request for support and entitled to bid as well ; a lump sum quote is however required. It is up the user to accept your offer and to decide whether he wants or does not want the processing of his file by a lawyer affiliated to TRAIAL.
Once your answer has been sent to the concerned user, his/her credit card will be automatically debited of the above mentioned amounts and TRAIAL shall wire you the due amount acting as an agent of such users within three business days.
When an attorney affiliated with TRAIAL is hired as a follow-up to the answer provided to a question, it is up to this lawyer to ensure that his quote will be duly paid by the user. TRAIAL does not intervene in the payment of fees in favor of the lawyer thus mandated.
Opening an account on TRAIAL is only meant to enable you to offer your legal support to users through the platform. In other words, TRAIAL only acts as an intermediary to enable the transaction to be directly entered into by you and the user having raised the request you answer.
From a legal point of view, the sending of the question by the user constitutes an offer to conclude a contract. The contract comes into force once the user chooses the provider who will answer his/her question. The legal provider’s acceptance thus only become effective once he/she has been chosen by the concerned user.
Acting as a principal, the user is responsible for paying the provider for services rendered. Prepayment is made to TRAIAL who, as the user's representative, guarantees the payment of the remuneration to the provider once the answer has been given.
As mentioned above, when the answer to the question raised gives rise to the granting of a mandate for a lawyer on the basis of a proposed lump sum estimate, it is the responsibility of the concerned lawyer to ensure the payment of his fees directly from the user. TRAIAL does not intervene in this matter.
Each time a user uses our Services, he/she undertakes to provide a rating on the quality of the legal support that has been provided by the concerned provider.
A TRAIAL rating therefore reflects an aggregation of users’ assessment of a given provider, based upon the information obtained by or submitted by users having benefitted from the Services of a concerned provider based upon preselected criteria, namely: (i) efficiency, (ii) accuracy and (iii) clarity, and (iv) usefulness of the answer provided to the concerned user.
Someone else's assessment of the same provider may be very different, or be based upon different information. Such rating is not an endorsement of any particular provider, and is not a guarantee of a provider’s quality, competency, or character. As a consequence, any rating should not be considered as a predictor of the outcome of any matter in which such provider is involved. Rather, the TRAIAL rating is intended to be a starting point to gather information about provider who may be suitable for your legal needs.
Should your TRAIAL rating be lower than 4/5, TRAIAL shall get in touch with you to assess the situation and the reasons for such rating. Any rating made by a user below 3 shall trigger a warning; after 3 warnings, TRAIAL reserves the right after having discussed with you to terminate your account so as to ensure the quality of the services provided through TRAIAL, in the interest of the TRAIAL community.
The answer to the question asked may in fact possibly lead to the hiring of a lawyer, notably when the provider who answered the question recommends such consultation and the user decides to follow this recommendation.
There is no guarantee, however, that the provider who has dealt with the matter, if he7she is a lawyer, will be selected to handle the mandate. Assuming that the user goes through the platform, which he is not obliged to do, you are free to offer a lump sum offer to obtain and execute the mandate, just like any other lawyer affiliated with the platform whose area of competence would correspond to that of the question asked. The final choice of the lawyer to process the file then belongs to the user at his discretion, bearing in mind that the user may decide not to hire any lawyer as a result of the different quotes he receives.
You understand that any question that you have access to through the Services is highly confidential and can not be revealed to anyone.
In the event of a breach of this confidentiality obligation, TRAIAL is entitled to immediately terminate your contract and demand reimbursement of all amounts paid by users in your favor.