# Acceptable use

nyc-evidence publishes **general legal information** for research: what statutes and court decisions say, with their sources. It is not a law firm, gives no legal advice, and creates no attorney-client relationship.

## Research questions, not someone's case

The service answers questions about the law ("Who is liable for a sidewalk defect in NYC since 2003?"), not about a particular person's situation ("Should I sue my neighbor?"). Questions that read as fact-specific still get general evidence, with a `FACT_SPECIFIC_QUESTION` limitation, and packets never contain advice prose. Applying the law to someone's facts needs a lawyer licensed in New York.

## If you build on this

- **Pass the limitations along.** Show `status` and `limitations` to your users, including `NOT_LEGAL_ADVICE`, `DATASET_UPDATES`, and `HUMAN_REVIEW_PENDING`. `DATASET_UPDATES` means the dataset changes from time to time, so a later request for the same question can be a different packet.
- **Don't present evidence as advice.** Don't tell a user what they should do, whether they will win, or how much a claim is worth on the strength of these records.
- **Don't hide uncertainty.** `INSUFFICIENT_EVIDENCE`, `UNVERIFIED_CANDIDATE`, and conflicts must reach the user. Don't fill gaps from a language model's memory and present them as coming from here.
- **Quote, don't rewrite.** Passages are verbatim. If you paraphrase, say it's a paraphrase and keep the citation.
- **Cite.** Keep the `cite_as` block (or at least the canonical URL) with anything you use, so readers can check it.
- **Check deadlines at the source.** Notice-of-claim and limitations periods have exceptions and tolling rules that are not all covered here.

## Not allowed

- Using the service to generate filings or letters that cite records here without a human checking the official source.
- Misrepresenting evidence from this service as reviewed by a lawyer.
- Automated traffic that degrades the service for others.

## Corrections

If a record is wrong (a misquotation, a wrong date, a missing limit), please open an "Evidence correction" issue in the repository with the record's URL and the source that shows the error. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.

## Data

Statutes, court opinions, and the passages quoted from them are public-domain government works. The editorial layer (propositions, summaries, relationships, and trust metadata) is licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Credit "nyc-evidence", link to the record or the repository, and give the dataset version. The code is MIT-licensed.