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KEYPOINT LEGAL INTELLIGENCE

Frequently Asked Questions

Keypoint Legal Intelligence helps Michigan attorneys, paralegals, legal teams, and students keep up with new decisions from the Michigan appellate courts, U.S. Supreme Court, Sixth Circuit, and federal district courts in Michigan. Here is what the service is, how to use it, and what it does not do.

How does the complimentary attorney month work?

An attorney named in a verified case may receive a personal email linking to the case summary and offering one free calendar month of Key Pass in one practice area covered by that case. A factual press draft is included only when independent review confirms that the attorney was on the winning side of that decision. Review any draft against the original decision before adapting it for a blog, social media or other promotional materials.

Open the personal invitation, or choose Find your free-month invitation on Keypoint if you cannot find the email. Sign in with the exact confirmed email address used for the invitation. Keypoint can show an existing offer for that address; looking it up does not start a free month or subscribe you to emails. A practice area from the case is preselected for your free Key Pass. Before accepting, you can use Change practice area to choose any one of the 15 practice areas, and Choose courts for daily emails to select which covered courts to include in your morning updates. Your Key Pass still lets you read all six covered courts in the selected practice area. Check the one box accepting the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, then start your free month. The linked Free-Month Membership and Email Terms section explains the membership and its reminder emails. The calendar month starts when you accept, and its membership area is then fixed. Morning case emails default on for that one area, while any email choices you previously saved still apply. You can adjust email courts later under Alerts and morning email. No payment card is required, and there is no automatic renewal or charge. Your account shows the exact end date and time.

The current signup choice includes up to five emails with 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 days remaining, with bold ending notices in the final two. If you have not purchased a subscription, up to three more emails follow 4, 7 and 14 days after the free month ends. They remind you about the service and link to paid membership choices. Earlier recipients keep their original five-reminder choice. You can unsubscribe without losing remaining free access. A paid purchase stops follow-ups, even if that subscription is later cancelled. To continue or expand your access, select a paid plan and complete checkout. Follow-ups do not restart or extend the free month. The weekly roundup is a separate signup.

What is Keypoint?

Keypoint is a current-awareness service. It follows new decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan. Its short, plain summaries help you see what a court decided and whether it matters to your practice. Every plan includes the same courts; a Key Pass covers your one chosen practice area, and the other plans cover all 15.

Which practice areas does Keypoint cover?

Keypoint organizes decisions into these 15 practice areas. A Key Pass covers one chosen area; Master Key Pass, Student Master Key Pass, Firm Key Pass and Golden Key Pass cover all 15:

The categories organize decisions from the same six covered courts. Adding Immigration, Bankruptcy or another category does not add immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, bankruptcy courts or bankruptcy appellate panels, Social Security administrative law judges, or the Federal Circuit to Keypoint’s sources.

Can one decision appear in more than one practice area?

Yes. Keypoint assigns more than one category when a decision materially addresses more than one area. A criminal postconviction decision can appear in Criminal Law and Habeas Corpus & Postconviction Relief. Immigration cases appear in Immigration & Nationality and may also appear in other supported categories, such as Civil Rights. They do not appear in Habeas Corpus & Postconviction Relief, even when they seek habeas relief.

Category counts can overlap because the same summary may appear in several categories. Your feed still lists each summary once. A topic or category filter narrows the summaries you may already read; it does not give you access outside your membership.

How are habeas, immigration and prisoner civil-rights decisions classified?

A challenge to a criminal conviction or sentence under section 2254 or 2255 belongs in Criminal Law and Habeas Corpus & Postconviction Relief. A section 2241 challenge is classified by the custody and issues involved. Immigration detention belongs in Immigration & Nationality and is excluded from Habeas Corpus & Postconviction Relief. Criminal custody or sentence-execution issues belong in Criminal Law and Habeas Corpus & Postconviction Relief when appropriate. The Habeas Corpus (§ 2241) topic can still identify an immigration habeas decision within Immigration & Nationality.

Judicial review of a removal, asylum or withholding decision belongs in Immigration & Nationality; it is not automatically a habeas proceeding. Prisoner civil-rights and prison-conditions claims belong in Civil Rights and are not automatically criminal postconviction cases. The fact that a case has a civil docket number, or mentions habeas, does not by itself decide its practice areas.

How do topic filters differ from practice areas?

Practice areas determine a Key Pass’s coverage. Topics identify narrower issues within the summaries that your membership covers. In the case feed or Your Saved Cases/Folders, use the All topics list to choose one topic; choose All topics again to remove that filter.

The controlled topic labels are:

A summary’s Topics list shows its assigned topics. A decision may have several topics or none. Topics are assigned from the decision’s material issues, not every word or authority it mentions. For example, Social Security benefits, ERISA benefits and disability discrimination can involve different practice areas even though each may concern a disability.

Search also finds the assigned practice-area and topic labels. A saved search keeps the text you enter, not the temporary practice-area, topic, court, date or publication-status dropdown selections. Type the topic wording into the search text if you want it included in a saved text search.

How do Social Security, ERISA and other disability decisions differ?

Social Security & Disability includes judicial review of Social Security benefit decisions. An ERISA disability-benefits dispute belongs in Labor, Employment & Employee Benefits. Disability discrimination at work belongs in the employment area; discrimination in public services can belong in Civil Rights. Keypoint classifies the material legal issues rather than assigning every decision that mentions disability to the same category.

Bankruptcy & Debtor–Creditor Law and Intellectual Property similarly organize qualifying decisions from the covered courts. They do not promise a complete bankruptcy or patent research collection, and the new labels do not add bankruptcy-court, bankruptcy-appellate-panel or Federal Circuit decisions as separate sources.

Can students use Keypoint, and is there a student membership?

Yes. The Student Master Key Pass costs $5 per month or $50 per year. It gives one named student the same access as an individual Master Key Pass: all 15 practice areas, all six covered courts, and the individual member tools, on up to 3 devices. Annual billing gives you two months free.

The student plan is for current high-school, undergraduate, law-school, and other postgraduate students. Choose Student or Law student as your role. Students can also choose another individual membership or use a named seat on a team’s Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass.

  1. Create your Keypoint account or sign in, then find Student Master Key Pass under Membership.
  2. Enter your school name and major field of study. Choose your current year of study from High School; Undergrad Years 1, 2, 3 or 4; Law School Years 1, 2, 3 or 4; or Other Postgrad.
  3. Enter your student ID number. This field is required.
  4. Choose monthly or annual billing and continue to Stripe checkout.

Keep your student details accurate. You can update them on the My account page under Your profile. Keypoint keeps those details private; it does not display them to other members. Use the summaries to follow current decisions, then read the original opinions through their source links.

What does each summary include?

Where do counsel names come from, and why are some missing?

Keypoint checks the opinion and available source records for names and the parties represented. Other sources include the Michigan Court of Appeals’ published case calls, the Michigan Supreme Court’s call notices, the U.S. Supreme Court’s published argument lists, and approved CourtListener archived RECAP docket records for Sixth Circuit and Michigan federal district-court cases. Sources are matched by court and docket number, and each displayed name has its source.

An argument list identifies the attorney scheduled to argue, and the summary labels that source accordingly. It may not identify every attorney in the case. Some cases are decided without argument, some opinions omit counsel, and older court lists may be unavailable. A missing counsel entry means Keypoint has not verified a name from an available readable source; it does not mean that the case had no attorney.

Verified names can be added to an existing summary’s counsel metadata without rewriting its summary or citation. The outreach page uses those same sourced counsel entries. Public federal Cases to watch listings remain separate from the argument-counsel evidence used to enrich a matching decision.

How do I use it?

Can I download or print the full court opinion?

Yes. Every summary links to the court’s full opinion. Open the summary, then click Open court opinion near the end of the page. The opinion opens in a new tab of your web browser, usually as a PDF file from the court or GovInfo, or as a CourtListener opinion page. Leave that tab open and follow the steps for your device.

On a computer, to save the opinion as a PDF file:

  1. Look for the download button on the opinion: usually a small arrow pointing down, near the top right corner. In Safari on a Mac, move the mouse pointer to the bottom center of the opinion to show it.
  2. Click the download button. If your browser asks where to save the file, choose a folder you will remember, such as Documents or Desktop, and click Save. Otherwise the file goes to your Downloads folder.
  3. Open that folder to find the opinion. You can open, print, or email it like any other file.

If there is no download button, or the opinion opened as a web page instead of a PDF, save it by printing it to a PDF file:

  1. Press the Ctrl and P keys together (on a Mac, the Command and P keys). The print window opens.
  2. Change the printer to Save as PDF. In Google Chrome, this setting is called Destination. On Windows, it may be called Microsoft Print to PDF. In Safari on a Mac, click the PDF button at the bottom of the window, then choose Save as PDF.
  3. Click Save (or Print), choose a folder, and click Save again.

To print the opinion on paper, press Ctrl and P (Command and P on a Mac), choose your printer, and click Print.

On an iPhone or iPad, in Safari:

  1. Open the opinion as described above.
  2. Tap the Share button, a square with an arrow pointing up. If you do not see it, tap the button with three dots first.
  3. Tap Save to Files, choose a folder, and tap Save. To print instead, tap Print.

On an Android phone, in Chrome:

  1. Open the opinion as described above. On some phones, Chrome saves the opinion to your Downloads as soon as it opens.
  2. Otherwise, tap the three dots in the top right corner, then tap Download.
  3. To find it later, tap the three dots, then Downloads.

How do I access my folders?

Click Your Saved Cases/Folders in the menu at the top of any page. The number beside it is how many cases you have saved.

Folders appear when you are signed in. Cases you save while signed out are kept in that web browser and listed on the same page.

What does “Seen” on a summary mean?

It marks a summary you have already opened. When you are signed in, the marks are kept in your account, so they appear on any device where you sign in. To remove one, click the × beside its Seen mark in the case feed. To remove them all, click Clear “Seen” marks on the My account page.

When you are signed out, the marks are kept only in that web browser.

What member tools come with a membership?

Choose Tools in the menu at the top of any page. On a phone, the menu is behind the button with three lines in the top right corner. Each tool works with the decisions your membership covers; on a Key Pass, that is your one practice area.

Federal decisions are included in the morning email, saved-search alerts, search, judge and attorney pages, folders, Word downloads, audio briefing, and team tools under those same practice-area rules. Cases to watch also supports all four federal courts, including following a case by its full docket number.

How does the morning email work?

Daily email updates are on by default for members; you do not need to tick a box to begin. An existing choice to turn them off, including an unsubscribe, stays off until you turn them on again. Under Practice areas and courts in the email on Alerts and morning email, choose the practice areas you want and open Courts below each area to select its courts. All six covered courts start selected for every area. Keep at least one practice area and one court in each selected area, then click Save email settings. You can choose different courts for each of the fifteen practice areas on an all-area plan; Key Pass has the same court choices for its covered practice area.

Daily delivery requires an active membership, a confirmed sign-in email address, your name and role, and enabled email delivery. Daily delivery does not require acceptance of the current Terms or Privacy Policy, and updates to either document do not pause daily emails. You must still accept the current versions before using protected website features. The email is scheduled to go out before 7 a.m. Eastern time, to the address you sign in with, on each morning when there is something new. Nothing is sent on a morning with nothing new. Your first email covers about the past day; each one after that covers the decisions summarized since the one before.

It lists, in this order: decisions in cases you confirmed as your own, decisions in cases you watch, new matches for your saved searches, and new decisions in your chosen practice areas. Each decision appears once, with its Keypoint, its Practitioner Takeaway, and links to the summary and the court’s opinion. A section with more than 40 decisions links to the rest on Keypoint.

Your practice-area and court choices apply to every section of the email, including saved searches and cases you follow. A decision in more than one practice area is included if you selected its court for at least one of its selected areas. Turning an area off keeps its court choices for when you turn it back on. These email choices do not change which summaries your membership lets you read on the website.

The email carries Keypoint Legal Intelligence branding and a Manage daily emails link to Alerts and morning email. To stop it, untick Email me new decisions each morning and click Save email settings. You can also use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email. That link opens a page with an Unsubscribe button, so that an email program checking links cannot unsubscribe you by accident; click the button to stop that email.

The header includes our gold key logo. The footer gives patrick@keypointlegal.com as the contact address and asks you to read the full opinion before relying on a decision.

How do I turn daily email updates off or back on?

Sign in and open Alerts and morning email, or choose Tools, then Alerts and morning email. Untick Email me new decisions each morning and click Save email settings to turn daily updates off. Tick the same box and save to turn them back on.

Every daily email has a Manage daily emails link to that settings page, plus a separate unsubscribe link. Your saved off choice is preserved; signing in again or changing your membership does not turn it back on.

Turning daily updates off does not cancel your membership or change your weekly-summary setting. The weekly email is off by default and is available only to Firm Key Pass and Golden Key Pass members who enable it.

How do I get alerts for a word, phrase, rule, judge, or attorney?

Save a search. On the Alerts and morning email page, type it under Saved searches and click Save search, or search the case feed and click Alert me to these search words under the search box. A saved search works as the case feed’s search does: a summary matches when it contains every word, and every "phrase in quotation marks", anywhere in the summary, including the names of judges and counsel.

New matches that fit your selected email practice areas and courts come in your morning email. Daily updates are on by default; if you turned them off, turn them back on to receive saved-search matches. The Alerts and morning email page shows how many summaries matched each search in the past week; click Show matches to see them in the case feed, or Remove to delete the search. You can keep up to 25 saved searches.

What is Cases to watch?

Choose Tools, then Cases to watch. Keypoint keeps the Michigan Court of Appeals’ case calls, Michigan Supreme Court’s call notices, and available published U.S. Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit argument calendars, and updates its copy each night. Titles and names appear exactly as the courts printed them, with the document each came from and, where available, a link to it. Federal district-court calendars are not imported.

To follow a federal case that is not on a calendar, use Follow a federal case by docket number. Choose the Federal court, enter the Full docket number, and click Follow case. For a district case, include the division and case type as the court prints them, such as 1:26-cv-12345; do not enter only the last digits. You may tick This is one of my cases. That is your own designation, not verification that a court lists you as counsel.

A docket you enter is labeled Docket you entered and is visible only in your account. Keypoint checks its format but does not check whether the case exists or retrieve its docket, filings, schedule, title, judge, or counsel. Keypoint does not invent a case title, judge, or counsel for it. It matches your chosen court and full docket number against summaries it publishes. This is not court-docket monitoring: a new filing or an unsummarized ruling produces no alert.

A case on a court list may be adjourned, decided without argument, or decided long after it was heard, and the lists may be incomplete or out of date. If a new calendar cannot be retrieved or read, Keypoint retains the earlier listings. Federal Cases to watch listings do not show calendar counsel, and the Supreme Court list does not establish the participating justices. On a Key Pass, a decision outside your practice area shows only that it was decided.

How do I hear when one of my own cases is decided?

Choose Tools, then Alerts and morning email. Under Your cases, enter your name as the court lists it and click Find listings. Keypoint shows each case on the courts’ lists that prints that name, ignoring capitals, periods, and commas. Court of Appeals case calls print names in capitals without periods; if a case is missing, try your name with and without your middle initial.

Click This is my case beside each listing that is yours, or that names an attorney you work with. Keypoint accepts only a name and party exactly as the court’s list prints them, and never asks for your bar number. Your cases are listed under Confirmed, and marked Your case on Cases to watch. Each shows when its decision has been summarized, and that decision leads your morning email under Decisions in your cases. Click Stop following to remove a case.

For a federal case without a court listing, open Cases to watch, enter its court and full docket number, and tick This is one of my cases before you click Follow case. Keypoint records this as your own designation and does not verify that you are counsel of record. Matching new summaries that fit your selected email practice areas and courts lead your morning email. Daily updates are on by default; if you turned them off, turn them back on to receive these notices.

How do I see every decision by a judge or an attorney?

Open any summary and click the trial judge’s name, the Deciding judge’s name on a district-court summary, or an attorney’s name under Counsel by party. A name shown as Not available cannot be clicked.

The page lists every Keypoint summary your membership covers that names that trial or deciding judge, or that attorney as counsel, newest first. It is not a complete list of that person’s decisions or cases. Each entry shows the decision, its court and date, the result the summary states (read the opinion for the full disposition), the name as supplied by the identified source, the party the attorney was listed for, the bar number where the source provides one, and the source of the name.

Names are matched only as the identified sources supplied them, ignoring capitals, periods, and commas, so “J. A. Doe” and “Jane A. Doe” are listed separately. For an attorney, a firm name or “(pro per)” printed after the name is not part of the match. If more than one bar number appears beside the same name, the page says so, since two attorneys may share it. Keypoint never guesses that two names belong to the same person. The lists are not evaluations of any judge or attorney.

Can I download cases as a Word document?

Yes. Under Your Saved Cases/Folders, open a folder and click Download as Word, or, with All saved cases chosen, click Download all saved cases as Word. Team folders and the weekly team summary have the same Download as Word button.

The document lists each decision’s Keypoint, with the case names in italics, its court, date, and docket number, its Practitioner Takeaway, and links to the summary on Keypoint and to the court’s opinion. It includes only decisions your membership covers.

How does the audio briefing work?

Choose Tools, then Daily audio briefing. Pick a day from the list, which shows how many decisions each day has, and, if your plan covers more than one practice area, a practice area or All practice areas. Click Play the briefing.

Your browser reads a short introduction, then, for each decision, its name, its court, whether it is published, the Keypoint’s holding, and the Practitioner Takeaway. The decision being read is highlighted. Use Pause and Resume, Previous and Next to move between decisions, and Stop. You can choose a reading speed and, where your browser offers several, a voice.

The briefing uses your browser’s own speech, so it needs a current browser, and the page must stay open while it plays; on some phones, reading stops when the screen locks. Keypoint does not receive what is read aloud. Voices marked “online” come from your browser’s maker, which receives the text it reads.

How can I ask a question or suggest an improvement?

Click the Questions? button in the bottom right corner of any page. An AI assistant answers questions about Keypoint’s website, plans, and policies. It does not give legal advice. The questions you type are sent to Anthropic to prepare its answers, so please do not include confidential information.

If the assistant cannot answer, it offers to send your question to Keypoint. We save your question in the owner inbox and send a notification to patrick@keypointlegal.com, so we can answer you by email. You can also write directly to that address.

To suggest an improvement, something to fix, or a new service, click Suggest an improvement at the bottom of any page. Suggestions are saved and emailed to the same Keypoint mailbox.

How is Keypoint different from Lexis or Westlaw?

Lexis and Westlaw are research services. They hold large collections of cases, statutes, and secondary sources, let you search all of them, and include citators, Shepard’s and KeyCite, that show how a decision has been treated since it was issued.

Keypoint is not a research service. It tells you, quickly and in plain language, what the six courts it covers have just decided, and gives you a citation you can copy. It does not search older case law, it does not show a decision’s later history, and it does not replace a research service or your own reading of the opinion.

Use Keypoint to learn what is new in Michigan and federal decisions without having to read hundreds of pages of opinions. Use the opinion itself and a research service to research the law and to confirm that a decision is still good law.

How is Keypoint different from the State Bar of Michigan’s free eJournal?

The eJournal is a useful free service. Keypoint helps you follow new Michigan and federal decisions in a form you can put straight into your own work. Here is how they differ.

Keypoint also keeps your folders and Seen marks in your account, so you can open them on any device, and a Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass gives each colleague, including paralegals and other staff, a login of their own. Its member tools add saved-search alerts, word when a followed case has a new summary, lists of decisions by judge or attorney, Word downloads, an audio briefing, and, for teams, shared folders with notes and a weekly summary. These tools include the federal decisions your practice-area access covers.

The eJournal also covers selected Sixth Circuit decisions and has a long archive. Keypoint covers Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan Court of Appeals opinions issued on or after October 1, 2026, and decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, Sixth Circuit, and Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan issued on or after October 27, 2026. Its federal coverage follows the scope described under Which decisions are included?

Which decisions are included?

Keypoint is designed to summarize opinions of the Michigan Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals, published and unpublished, issued on or after October 1, 2026.

Federal coverage begins with decisions issued on or after October 27, 2026. Keypoint is designed to include U.S. Supreme Court merits decisions, including per curiam opinions and reasoned summary merits dispositions; and the Sixth Circuit’s substantive published and unpublished lead or combined opinions, from throughout the circuit.

In the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, coverage includes substantive opinions and reasoned orders, including adopted magistrate judge recommendations. It includes substantive rulings on motions, criminal matters and habeas, and review of agency or bankruptcy decisions. An adopted recommendation is included when the source establishes adoption and supplies the adopted reasoning; a magistrate judge’s own final ruling may qualify when the source establishes the judge’s authority to decide it.

Routine scheduling and administrative orders, unadopted magistrate recommendations, and standalone Supreme Court writings about orders or emergency applications are outside this coverage. Keypoint also excludes unreasoned minute entries, Supreme Court certiorari grants and denials without a merits opinion, bare orders, emergency or stay orders, in-chambers opinions, and standalone concurrences and dissents. Standalone Sixth Circuit concurrences and dissents are not summarized as lead opinions.

Keypoint focuses on new decisions; it is not an archive of older cases. A decision must also fit one of Keypoint’s 15 practice areas and pass the source and summary checks. Not every eligible decision is found or summarized.

Where does Keypoint get decisions and what information can it get?

Keypoint finds Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan Court of Appeals opinions through the courts’ release emails, delivered to a dedicated Keypoint address through Resend, then follows the links to the official opinion PDFs. The notices locate documents; their descriptions do not supply facts for the summaries. The reader checks the exact sender and recipient and the receiving server’s email-authentication results. This feature does not connect to anyone’s personal Gmail mailbox. Resend retains incoming messages under its provider retention policy. Keypoint does not retain raw release-email bodies in its application database or send them to an AI provider.

For all four covered federal courts—the U.S. Supreme Court, Sixth Circuit, and Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan—Keypoint searches CourtListener’s opinion collection and retrieves the complete opinion PDF. The PDF may be hosted by the court, CourtListener, or the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s GovInfo service. GovInfo remains an official PDF host and a source for previously discovered documents; its feeds and metadata do not supply case facts for new summaries.

For a Sixth Circuit or Michigan federal district-court decision Keypoint publishes, it may also look for counsel and associated parties in CourtListener’s archived RECAP docket records, after matching the court, full docket number, and case identity. Each RECAP listing identifies its source and retrieval date. RECAP records can be incomplete or out of date: an attorney listing does not establish who represented a party at the time of the decision or who represents it now. The retrieval date does not establish that the underlying record was current on that date.

The complete opinion PDF supplies the case name, court, docket number, decision date, publication status, citations, procedural history, facts, reasoning, and outcome. Keypoint does not fill missing case facts from release-email text, search results, docket metadata, feed dates, or a PDF filename. If the PDF does not establish a required fact, the decision may be withheld for review. The exceptions are separately sourced counsel and an actual lower-court judge, when a public record can be matched to the case and the lower-court relationship. A docket’s assigned judge does not supply the deciding judge.

Keypoint does not search PACER or a court’s live case docket. It does not obtain a docket sheet, briefs, motions, complaints, exhibits, transcripts, deadlines, or every order simply because a case is covered or followed. Search and saved-search alerts cover Keypoint’s summaries, not all court filings or the text of every case in a research database.

Why might a decision be missing or delayed?

A Michigan court release notice may be delayed or missing, and CourtListener does not promise that every qualifying federal decision will appear immediately or at all. If a notice or opinion PDF is unavailable, incomplete, unreadable, or cannot be verified, the decision may be delayed or omitted.

Keypoint’s normal CourtListener search looks back 45 days, subject to the applicable coverage start date. A decision added to that source more than 45 days after its decision date can be missed. Each run can start up to 50 decisions and use up to 300 model requests. It stops starting new decisions after 150 minutes and lets an in-progress decision finish. Its CourtListener search is also limited to eight search pages per run. Selected federal decisions, discovered Michigan PDF links, and release messages awaiting processing are saved for later runs.

An opinion may also be withheld if its date or identity cannot be established from the PDF, it does not fit a practice area, or its summary fails a quality check. Keypoint does not guarantee that any particular decision will be found, summarized, or appear within a particular time.

How soon do new decisions appear?

Keypoint is scheduled to check for new opinions at 3:17 a.m., 7:17 a.m., 10:17 a.m., 1:17 p.m., 4:17 p.m., and 8:17 p.m. Eastern standard time. During daylight saving time, each scheduled check is one hour later. If an earlier check is still running, the next one waits for it to finish. A summary appears once it has been prepared and has passed its checks. Source delays, the limits described above, and failed checks can delay or prevent a summary. While the morning email remains on, it lists the new summaries in your practice areas when email delivery is enabled.

Why do some summaries say “Not available” for counsel or the lower-court judge?

Keypoint never guesses a name. Every judge and attorney appears as supplied by the identified source, which is named beneath it. When we have no source for an item, it reads “Not available.” That means we did not have a source showing it, not that there was no attorney or judge.

Counsel come from the opinion itself when it names them, and from published court lists where those lists name counsel. The Michigan Court of Appeals’ monthly case calls and Michigan Supreme Court’s call notices provide many of those names; the Michigan Supreme Court’s notices also give the lower court and the trial judge. A U.S. Supreme Court summary may also name attorneys from its hearing list, labeled “listed for argument,” with the list and date shown as the source. The list identifies scheduled argument counsel; it does not establish that they actually appeared, that they remained counsel when the Court decided the case, or that every attorney on the case is listed.

CourtListener’s archived RECAP docket data can supply counsel names and party associations for some Sixth Circuit and Michigan federal district-court decisions, when the case can be matched. RECAP is not used for U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The source and retrieval date are shown with each listing. Those records may be incomplete or out of date, and a listing does not establish that an attorney represented the party when the decision issued or represents it now. A district-court summary does not use a docket’s assigned judge as the deciding judge.

Keypoint began saving the Michigan lists in late October 2026, and the Michigan courts do not keep earlier ones posted. Most Michigan decisions released in Keypoint’s first months were argued before then, so many of their summaries will show “Not available” for some of these items. As the cases on the saved lists are decided, more and more summaries will include them.

For an appellate decision, the trial judge appears when the opinion PDF names the judge or a matched public court record identifies the actual lower-court judge. The opinion PDF must establish the lower-court relationship. For a district-court decision, Deciding judge names the judge who issued the ruling only when the opinion PDF identifies that judge. If the PDF does not establish a name, it reads Not available. Publication status and reporter citations also come from the PDF; Keypoint does not invent them or treat a PDF viewer page number as a reporter pinpoint.

Are the summaries updated if a decision is later reversed or changed?

No. Each summary describes the opinion as it was issued. Summaries are not updated for later developments in a case, such as rehearing, amendment, appeal, reversal, or modification, and Keypoint has no citator like Shepard’s or KeyCite.

Before you rely on a decision or a Keypoint in your work, read the opinion and check the decision’s later history yourself with a citator such as Shepard’s or KeyCite, so that your research is up to date.

Is Keypoint legal advice? Who prepares the summaries?

No, it is not legal advice. The summaries are for information only, and using Keypoint does not create an attorney-client relationship. Keypoint is a division of Pen and Key, LLC, which is not a law firm.

The summaries are prepared with artificial intelligence and checked automatically against the full opinion. The checks reduce errors but cannot eliminate them, and a short summary cannot include every point in a long decision. Always read the original opinion before relying on a decision.

May I use the Keypoint citations in my own work?

Yes. While your membership is active, you may copy individual Keypoint citations and parentheticals into documents you prepare in your own practice. Please do not share or republish the summaries themselves. The Terms of Service explain what is permitted.

How does membership work, and how do I cancel?

A Key Pass covers one practice area of your choice, and a Master Key Pass covers all of them, for one person. Student Master Key Pass gives a current student the same individual access at the student price. A Firm Key Pass covers all of them for up to 4 people, and a Golden Key Pass for up to 10: any mix of attorneys, paralegals, other legal staff, law students, and other students. Prices are shown under Membership on the site. You can cancel at any time from your account page by choosing “Manage billing and subscription,” and you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for. As the Terms of Service explain, payments are not refundable.

How do the Firm Key Pass and Golden Key Pass work for my team?

A Firm Key Pass gives up to 4 people, and a Golden Key Pass up to 10, their own access to every practice area on one subscription: the person who subscribes and up to 3 or 9 colleagues. They can be any mix of attorneys, paralegals, other legal staff, law students, and other students, with any email address, firm domain or not.

  1. Create your own Keypoint account, then choose Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass under Membership and complete checkout.
  2. On the My account page, under Your team, enter a colleague’s full name, role, and email address, and click Add to team. Repeat for each colleague.
  3. Ask each colleague to create a Keypoint account, or sign in, with that same email address. Keypoint does not email them an invitation. Once they sign in with an active team membership and complete their account, daily updates are on by default unless they turn them off.

Each colleague can then read every practice area, on up to 3 devices, for as long as your subscription is active. You can remove someone at any time, which ends their access. Removing someone who never signed in costs nothing; replacing someone who has signed in is limited to 2 times per subscription year on a Firm Key Pass and 4 times on a Golden Key Pass. Billing stays with you, the subscriber.

How do team folders work?

Team folders come with a Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass. Everyone on the team sees the same folders and notes.

  1. Choose Tools, then Team folders. Under New team folder, type a name and click Create folder.
  2. To add a decision, open its summary, click Add to team folder, choose the folder, and click Add.
  3. Under each decision in a folder, anyone on the team can type a note and click Add note. Each note shows its writer’s name and the time, and is marked if edited.
  4. Click Download as Word to get the folder as a document.

Only a note’s writer can edit it; the writer or the subscriber can remove it. Anyone on the team can take a decision out with Remove from folder, which also removes its notes in that folder. The folder’s creator or the subscriber can rename or delete the folder; deleting it removes its notes for everyone.

A team can keep up to 50 folders, each with up to 500 decisions and up to 100 notes on each decision. A note stays, with its writer’s name, after the writer leaves the team, until the team removes it.

What is the weekly team summary?

It comes with a Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass. Choose Tools, then Weekly team summary, to see the decisions issued last week, Monday through Sunday, under each practice area chosen in your email settings (all of them until you choose). Each area includes only the courts you selected for that area; all six courts are included until you change them. The weekly page, email and Word download use those same choices. Each decision shows its Keypoint and Practitioner Takeaway. Use Earlier week to look back, Later week to come forward again, and Download as Word to get the week as a document.

The weekly email is off by default, separately from daily updates. To receive it on Monday mornings, tick Email me the weekly team summary on Monday mornings under Alerts and morning email, and click Save email settings. Weekly email delivery still requires acceptance of the current Terms and Privacy Policy. The email links to the Word document, which you can download while signed in.

Share it only with the colleagues your plan covers.

Why am I asked to sign out one of my devices?

Each Keypoint account is for one person and can be signed in on up to 3 devices at a time, such as an office computer, a laptop, and a phone. When you sign in on a fourth, Keypoint asks you to choose one of the other three to sign out.

You can see your devices, and sign any of them out, on the My account page under Your devices. To give a colleague access, a Firm Key Pass or Golden Key Pass gives each person their own login.

Why does Keypoint ask for my name and role?

Every Keypoint account belongs to one named person, so we ask for your full name and whether you are an attorney, a paralegal, other legal staff, a law student, or another student. We do not ask for a bar number. You can change these on the My account page, under Your profile. A student membership also requires your school, major field of study, current year of study and student ID number.

How does Keypoint find an attorney’s email address for outreach?

When we open a case-specific outreach draft for an attorney named in the court’s sources, Keypoint looks for the attorney’s published professional email address in the State Bar of Michigan’s public Classic Directory and broader public professional sources, including law-firm websites and other bar or organization profiles. The broader search also supports attorneys outside Michigan. Google business profiles and search results can help locate a public professional page. Keypoint uses the source name and any available bar number or firm to check the match, verifies an address against its public source, keeps the source profile link and check date, and reuses recent results. It does not guess an address or automatically fill an ambiguous match.

We can also upload a Name/Email CSV on the private owner outreach page. Valid imported contacts are stored privately with the source filename and import date, then matched to the full attorney name on a draft. An imported address is supplied by us; it is not presented as a public-web verification. We skip entries marked Unlisted or Unverified, invalid addresses and conflicting duplicate names. Imported contacts do not change the court-sourced counsel listing, and addresses on the permanent do-not-email list remain excluded.

If the directory is unavailable or does not supply an address, Keypoint can try the broader search. If the match remains uncertain, a source cannot be checked, or no public address is found, the address remains blank and we can enter a verified address and its source ourselves. An address on our do-not-email list is not filled. A lookup preserves our edits and does not send or mark an email sent. We review the recipient and message, then send it ourselves from our business mailbox. This lookup is separate from members’ daily email updates.

If you would rather not receive outreach from Keypoint, reply “stop” to the message or email patrick@keypointlegal.com. We keep the address on our permanent do-not-email list. Our Privacy Policy describes the lookup records we keep.

Can the owner import contacts and open several outreach drafts?

Yes. The private owner outreach page accepts a CSV with Name and Email columns, including quoted names. The import report identifies rows that were skipped. Matching imported contacts can fill recipients without a separate web lookup, while manual recipient, source and message edits are preserved.

Use the draft checkboxes and Select all drafts to choose the currently shown attorneys. Enable Show the other side’s counsel too to include those attorneys in the displayed selection. Open selected in Zoho prepares an ordered queue and requests the first draft. Return to Outreach and choose Open next draft in Zoho for each remaining message. Each click requests a separate personalized message with its own recipient, subject and body. The queue keeps your place while the page remains open, and individual draft links remain available to retry a message. Sent and Not Sent items stay out of the selection; unresolved or opted-out addresses are not opened. The page reports entries that need attention.

Choose Edit email draft beside an attorney to change the recipient, subject or message before opening it. Generated emails leave a blank line after the Dear greeting and omit the duplicate company-identification line and postal address because our existing Zoho signature supplies them. The advertisement and reply-stop wording remain in the message.

After sending messages yourself, use Mark selected as sent to record the selected messages you actually sent. A Sent mark requires a usable address and source and respects the do-not-email list. Mark selected as not sent files selected drafts you decided not to send, even without an address. The page reports saved, skipped or conflicting items separately; existing Sent or Not Sent records are not rewritten.

Browsers may allow only one email-composer handoff from a click; allowing popups does not reliably make several handoffs work. The queue therefore requests one draft per click. The browser’s Zoho mail-handler setup and the selected Zoho account control opening and signature insertion. Keypoint does not send these drafts, create authenticated Zoho Drafts-folder records, or mark messages sent when they are opened. Creating every draft in Zoho from one click would require a separate authenticated Zoho API connection, which is not currently configured. We review each message and send it ourselves.

Why are recently contacted attorneys hidden from outreach drafts?

New introductory drafts stay hidden for 30 days after the most recent first email or follow-up recorded as sent to that attorney. Keypoint matches the full attorney name or a known recipient email address, including an address supplied by CSV import or entered in a draft. During that waiting period, the attorney is excluded from Drafts, draft counts, selection and the Zoho queue, rather than appearing with a repeat-contact warning.

After 30 days, eligible new drafts can appear again for decisions still in the recent 14-day feed. An existing Sent or Not Sent record continues to exclude that attorney for the same decision, and the permanent do-not-email list still applies.

Scheduled follow-ups remain available in Sent under the separate five-business-day rule. A reply does not restart the waiting period. Record messages you actually send with Mark sent or Mark selected as sent; opening, copying or importing a draft does not record an email or start the waiting period.

How do I contact you?

Email us at patrick@keypointlegal.com with any question, or to tell us about a problem with a summary.

See also our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Keypoint Legal Intelligence is a division of Pen and Key, LLC. Lexis, Shepard’s, Westlaw, and KeyCite are trademarks of their respective owners. Keypoint is not affiliated with them, or with the State Bar of Michigan, which publishes the eJournal.