LOIS Explore [What It Changes]

TL;DR

• LOIS Explore is Filevine's free, no-credit-card sandbox of its Legal Operating Intelligence System, aimed at law-firm and legal-business users who want to test research, document analysis, drafting, citation checks, and privilege flags on their own uploads.

• As of the July 30, 2026 press release, Filevine says users can upload files up to 5 GB and 15,000 pages, pick litigation, transactional, or advisory settings, and be up and running in 10–15 minutes. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly independently reported the sandbox on August 17, 2026.

• Filevine says uploads are not used to train models, and that accounts, documents, and chat histories are deleted when the free period ends. Connecting LOIS to live matter data, team collaboration, or saved prompts is paid.

• A 2-truck HVAC shop, a 10-person agency, or a clinic should care because this is “try the tool on a real job file without a card,” not because they will open a legal-AI account.

Key Takeaways

• LOIS Explore is a sandbox, not the live Filevine matter system. filevine.com/lois is the product front door; paid LOIS is what connects to case data.

• Two upload ceilings apply at once: 5 GB and 15,000 pages. Whichever you hit first stops the test.

• Access needs verifiable law-firm or legal-business contact information. This is not a consumer ChatGPT trial.

• Deletion at the end of the free period is a Filevine protocol, not a backup system. Export anything you still need before the clock runs out.

• Citation checks and privilege flags in Explore are still drafts. ABA Model Rule 1.1 still requires the lawyer to verify.

LOIS Explore in one sentence

LOIS Explore is Filevine's free sandbox of LOIS — the Legal Operating Intelligence System — so a legal professional can upload large files, run research, analysis, drafting, citation checks, and privilege flags, and leave without a credit card. Filevine's vendor primary is the July 30, 2026 PR Newswire release. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly is the independent write-up dated August 17, 2026.

A two-truck HVAC shop already does this when it tests estimating software on one real job packet instead of a vendor demo deck. A 10-person marketing agency does it when it drops a single client brief into a new AI workspace before buying seats. A solo clinic does it when it uploads one policy PDF to see whether the tool cites the page it claims. LOIS Explore is Filevine's version of that test, gated to legal businesses, sized for files generic chat tools choke on. Non-law operators will not get an account. They should still copy the procurement move: a sandbox with a deletion clock beats a card-on-file “trial.”

If your office already moves forms into a CRM — the pattern in form-to-CRM tools — Explore is not that pipe. It is a research sandbox. Paid LOIS is the pipe to live matters. Solos comparing Clio alternatives, family-law shops on MyCase versus Clio Manage, and transactional shops on Smokeball versus Clio Manage are choosing a system of record; Explore does not replace that choice.

What the free sandbox includes

According to Filevine's July 30 press release on PR Newswire, LOIS Explore processes files up to 5 GB and 15,000 pages, provides verified citations for every answer, and is built on structured legal data from 40 million matters.

According to the same PR Newswire release, firms can be up and running in 10–15 minutes, with no credit card and no commitment, after selecting a practice track — litigation, transactional, or advisory.

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly independently restated the caps and the purpose. According to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, LOIS Explore can process files as large as 5 gigabytes and documents containing as many as 15,000 pages, with functions that include reviewing case materials, checking citations against case law, and identifying potential privilege issues.

According to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Filevine said LOIS was developed using structured data drawn from 40 million legal matters, that documents uploaded to Explore will not be used to train AI models, and that accounts, documents, and chat histories will be permanently deleted when each free-access period ends.

That is the product. Research, document analysis, drafting, semantic search, citation checks, privilege flags, three practice tracks. Chief Product Officer Michael Anderson, quoted in the press release, framed it as a way for lawyers already trying multiple legal AI tools in parallel to take “the LOIS challenge” on rich source verification and citator analysis.

LOIS Legal Research is the related research surface, with citation checking, evidence grounding, and citator analysis — the paid-product story, not the sandbox price. Filevine later launched a citator and anti-hallucination pass, described in a September 1 PR Newswire release and an evaluation post that checked 2,073 citations. Explore is how Filevine wants a firm to feel that stack without a card. A September 10 webinar is on the calendar for the citator demo; it is not Explore's onboarding.

Sources: PR Newswire, July 30, 2026; Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

According to Filevine's LOIS page, Filevine states 15% increased output, 30% faster recall, 14%+ reduced drafting time, and 24% efficiency gains. Those are not Explore-sandbox measurements. Do not treat them as what a 10-person firm will see in a deleted test account.

Data handling and the deletion clock

Filevine's protocol, stated in both the press release and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, is: no training on uploaded documents; accounts, uploaded documents, and chat history permanently deleted at the end of each free access period. That is a vendor statement, not an SOC report.

It is also the operational trap. A sandbox that deletes the work product is useless if the only copy of a privilege map lived in the chat. Export the memo. Save the citations. Then let the account die. After-hours assistant habits — the ones in five ways to automate executive-assistant tasks — apply: a person still has to file the output in the matter system Explore is not connected to.

Teams already routing document analysis through US Tech Automations should treat Explore as a throwaway workbench: upload a copy, pull the cited draft back into the workflow, and never make Explore the system of record. Paid LOIS is the connector; Explore is the test.

Comment [8] on ABA Model Rule 1.1 still requires lawyers to understand technology's benefits and risks. A free sandbox that trains on your files would be a risk. Filevine says this one does not. A free sandbox that vanishes the only copy of a privilege flag is also a risk. Filevine says it will vanish.

CourtListener currently lists 8,300,000 precedential opinions. That is a public corpus, not Filevine's 40 million matters. Do not equate them. Westlaw remains the incumbent many firms will compare Explore against; Thomson Reuters says that stack sits on 175 years of knowledge and that Practical Law uses 650+ attorney editors. Those are Westlaw's figures, not Explore's.

Paid walls: live matters, teams, saved prompts

Both sources draw the same line. The free version is a separate testing environment. Connecting LOIS to live case data, enabling team collaboration, or retaining customized / firm-saved prompts is paid. Filevine tells firms to contact a sales representative for that step. Access to Explore itself requires full, verifiable contact information from a law firm or legal business.

Sources: PR Newswire; Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Filevine describes itself in the Explore release as the system of record for the modern law firm, headquartered in Salt Lake City, with thousands of organizations on the platform and honors from LegalTech Breakthrough, SaaS Awards, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and a Business Intelligence AI Excellence Award. Awards are not sandbox benchmarks. The Model Rules table of contents still applies to anything a lawyer pastes out of Explore into a filing. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel and Westlaw Edge plans are the comparison set a firm will actually put next to a 10–15 minute Filevine signup.

A small-business operator who wants the non-legal version of “try automation on one workflow” can start from the state of small-business automation and keep Explore as the legal-industry example of a deletion-clock sandbox.

USTA analysis: two ceilings, one stop

USTA analysis. Filevine states two independent upload limits: 5 GB and 15,000 pages. Neither release publishes average bytes per page, so a single “which cap binds first” number cannot be computed from the sources. What the two figures do establish is a first-hit-wins rule:

• A 4 GB corpus of 16,000 pages fails the 15,000-page cap even though it is under 5 GB.

• A 6 GB corpus of 10,000 pages fails the 5 GB cap even though it is under 15,000 pages.

• Only a corpus under both 5 GB and 15,000 pages is in-bounds.

The three practice tracks (litigation, transactional, advisory) are a second sourced triad: one account, three settings, not three products. The 10–15 minute start time is Filevine's, not a timed third-party install.

Inputs: PR Newswire; Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. The first-hit-wins rule is USTA's reading of two simultaneous caps.

US Tech Automations should record which cap a test hit — GB or pages — so a later paid rollout does not assume “we already tried a 15,000-page matter” when the test actually died at 5 GB.

What this does not establish

LOIS Explore does not establish a free-period length in days. Both sources say “when the free period ends” / “each free-access period” without a number of days. Do not invent 14 or 30. It does not establish that citation verification in Explore matches the 61.8% / 38.2% / 8.4% figures in Filevine's later sanctioned-filing test; those figures belong to the citator evaluation, not the sandbox announcement. It does not establish a paid price. It does not establish that a non-legal email will get in; Filevine requires verifiable law-firm or legal-business contact.

It also does not establish that “no training” equals “no vendor access.” Filevine did not publish a subprocessor list in these two releases. Recheck Filevine's current terms before uploading privileged files, even into a sandbox that promises deletion.

A buyer's evaluation sequence

If assistant-style follow-up is how your firm already files research memos, keep that habit. Explore will not. US Tech Automations can be the place the exported memo lands, with a human review task, so the sandbox never becomes the archive.

Signal vs Speculation

Demonstrated signal: as of July 30, 2026, Filevine launched LOIS Explore as a free, no-credit-card sandbox; Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly independently reported it on August 17, 2026; both sources state 5 GB and 15,000-page caps, 40 million matters as LOIS's structured-data claim, no training on uploads, deletion at period end, three practice tracks, verifiable legal-business contact, and a paid wall for live data, team features, and saved prompts; Filevine claims a 10–15 minute start.

Our read: over 12 months, expect other legal-AI vendors to copy the “no card, big-file sandbox, deletion clock” pattern because that is how a risk-averse partner agrees to a test. The constraint that broke is not model quality. It is the credit-card form and the 25-page demo file.

Our read: over 24–36 months, sandboxes that cannot connect to live matters will convert only if the export path is clean. Firms that treat Explore as a matter system will lose work at deletion. Firms that park exported memos in a workflow they already trust — including US Tech Automations — will actually finish the evaluation. HVAC, agency, and clinic buyers will see the same pattern: a free workbench is useful only if the output files into the system you already run.

Frequently asked questions

What is LOIS Explore?

LOIS Explore is Filevine's free sandbox of its Legal Operating Intelligence System, with no credit card, for legal professionals to test research, analysis, drafting, citation checks, and privilege flags on uploaded files.

When did it launch?

Filevine's press release is dated July 30, 2026. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reported the free platform on August 17, 2026.

How large a file can I upload?

Filevine and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly both state up to 5 GB and up to 15,000 pages. Both limits apply.

Will Filevine train on my uploads?

Filevine says no. It also says accounts, documents, and chat histories are permanently deleted when the free-access period ends. Export first.

Who can get an account?

Access requires verifiable contact information from a law firm or legal business. It is not described as open to the general public.

What stays paid?

Connecting LOIS to live case data, team collaboration, and saved or firm prompts. Explore is a separate testing environment.

Does Explore replace Westlaw or a matter system?

No. It is a sandbox. Paid LOIS is the live-data product. Incumbent research tools and your system of record stay in place until you buy and connect them.

If your firm already files research memos, privilege flags, and citation checks through an approval workflow, land Explore exports on that same path instead of leaving the only copy inside a sandbox that Filevine says it will delete.