For Attorneys

What's New for Attorneys

Latest improvements to search, discovery, and your Exlitem experience.

14 min read

Stay up to date with the latest improvements to Exlitem. We ship updates regularly to make finding the right expert faster and easier.

#May 2026 (Late)

#Resend & nudge — keep an inquiry moving when delivery isn't enough

The inquiry detail page now exposes two follow-up actions that appear automatically once they're usable:

Resend original email — re-fires the exact email you originally sent. Available 48 hours after delivery is confirmed, as long as the expert hasn't replied and no resend is in flight.
Send a nudge — a short reminder message threaded in-reply-to your original email, so it shows up in the same inbox conversation rather than a separate thread. Capped at 3 nudges per inquiry with a 48-hour cooldown between attempts.

Both actions hide themselves the moment the expert replies or the inquiry hits a terminal status. If you've hit the cooldown or nudge cap, the buttons stay hidden and the inquiry surfaces a small "next action available in X hours" hint instead.

See Messaging & Inquiries → Following Up on Inquiries for the full set of rules.

#Three-state contact CTA on expert profiles — know what you're looking at

The contact button on the profile sidebar now distinguishes three states instead of one ambiguous "Request Contact Info":

You've unlocked, contact data shows — email and phone render inline (subject to the expert's display toggles for Pro/Premium experts).
Data on file, but you can't see it yet — a new "Contact {Name} via Exlitem" button opens the message proxy. Use this when the expert is free-tier (their email can't be displayed publicly under the new policy) or when you simply haven't unlocked yet.
No contact data on file at all — the button reads "Contact {Name}" and opens a contact-request flow asking our team to source the expert's contact details. If a request is already in flight you'll see its status inline (In Review, Fulfilled, Unavailable, Requested) instead of the button.

Backed by a new has_contact_on_file signal so we never misclassify "no data" as "data hidden" or vice versa.

#Phone numbers are click-to-reveal on unlocked profiles

When you've unlocked an expert, their phone number is hidden behind a Show phone button by default. Useful on shared screens or recorded demos where you don't want a personal number visible until you actually need to dial it.

#Free-tier expert email is now never displayed publicly

Under the refreshed contact policy, only Pro and Premium experts can publish their email address on their public profile. For free-tier and unclaimed experts, the email never renders — even after a paid unlock. The unlock still gives you their phone (the paid unlock pierces the per-row visibility toggle), and you can always start a conversation through Exlitem's message proxy. This codifies an existing intent that previously leaked through in edge cases.

#Inline firm-invitation accept — role chooser without leaving the dashboard

Accepting a firm invitation now happens inline: a small role chooser (Member / Admin) appears on the dashboard, the accept call is race-safe if a teammate joined in the same window, and you no longer get bounced through a separate post-accept screen. There's also a new accept-pending path for invites you opened while already signed in — no need to sign out and back in to consume the token.

#Notification preferences, rebuilt — pick the frequency, not just on or off

Your email preferences are no longer a flat list of on/off switches. Each notification category now has its own frequency picker — Real-time, Daily digest, Weekly digest, or Off — and you can mix and match across categories. Find it under Dashboard → Settings → Email Notifications.

Always sent sit at the top — billing receipts, security alerts, subscription changes, and anything legally required. You can't turn these off, and the page now says so explicitly.
Per-category descriptions and "What's included" expanders show exactly which emails fall under each toggle, so there are no surprises.
"Last sent X ago" appears next to each category — a quick way to spot whether a notification you expected actually went out.
"View recent notifications sent to you" opens a modal showing the last 50 events with timestamps, so you can audit what we've actually emailed.

#Daily and weekly digests

Pick Daily digest on any digest-eligible category (like new messages) and we'll collect activity through the day and send one consolidated 9 AM email instead of pinging you every time. Pick Weekly digest for low-volume categories where one Monday roll-up is enough.

Digests currently fire at 9 AM UTC for everyone. The backend already supports per-user local-time delivery once a timezone is on file — a settings field for that is coming next.

#In-app notification bell

A bell icon appeared in the top navigation. It shows a badge with your unread count, opens a dropdown of the 10 most recent events, and links to a full /notifications page for the full history. Clicking a thread-based notification deep-links you straight to the conversation. "Mark all as read" is one click away.

The bell polls every 30 seconds while the tab is visible, so new activity surfaces without a refresh.

#May 2026 (Mid)

#See whether your inquiry actually reached the expert

Every inquiry now tracks its email delivery state — Sent → Delivered → Opened → Bounced — so you can tell at a glance whether your message landed in the expert's inbox and whether they read it. The signal flows from the email provider's webhook events into the inquiry, and you'll see the latest state on the inquiry detail (and a small status dot in your inquiry list).

Delivered confirms the email was accepted by the recipient's mail server.
Opened means the expert (or their mail client) has loaded the message.
Bounced means we couldn't deliver — usually a stale or invalid address. Bounced inquiries are flagged so you know to choose a different expert rather than wait for a reply that won't come.
The status only ever moves forward — a late "Delivered" event won't roll back an "Opened" you've already seen.

#We won't try to email an expert who's opted out

If an expert has previously opted out of our emails (unsubscribed, marked us as spam, or their address has hard-bounced before), we now block the inquiry before you spend time composing it — you'll see a clear message that the expert can't be reached via email, with no inquiry created and no time wasted.

This applies the same suppression list across every send, so an expert who opted out of one inquiry won't get the next one either. We don't reveal the expert's email address as a workaround — opt-out means opt-out — but you're free to pick a different expert from the same shortlist.

#May 2026 (Early)

You can now invite teammates to your firm with a tokenized email link. Send the invite from Settings → Firm, your colleague accepts from their inbox, and they join your firm on first sign-in — no need to coordinate sign-up timing.

Tokenized invitation links expire after use; the same email can only have one pending invitation at a time.
Auto-join on sign-up — if the colleague is signing up for the first time, the invitation is consumed as part of their first sign-in. No manual step.
Personal credits transfer to the firm pool automatically when an invitee accepts. Anything they had on their personal balance moves to the shared pool, so credits don't get stranded.
Direct-add notifications — if an admin adds someone to a firm without an invitation (e.g. via the admin console), the new member gets a notification email so they know.

If you're on a firm-pooled plan, the credit and billing surfaces have been adapted accordingly: members see the shared balance and shared usage, while billing actions stay with firm admins.

#Track inquiries inside your matter pipeline

When you finish sending an inquiry, we now prompt to link it to a matter — no more bookkeeping between the inquiry inbox and your case list.

Track-in-matter prompt appears right after you hit Send. Pick an existing matter or create one inline.
Link existing inquiries via the inquiry detail view at any time — PATCH updates the link without touching the inquiry body.

#Unified messaging is now consistent across attorney, expert, and admin views

Phase 2 of the messaging rebuild: the same thread UI now mounts in attorney dashboards, expert dashboards, and the admin concierge surface. Same components, same keyboard shortcuts, same message ordering — only the entry points differ. Means fewer surprises when ops needs to step into a thread to help.

#Cleaner invoice viewing

The invoice viewer got a polish pass that affects you when an expert sends you a bill:

Iframe-based preview pane with a paper-shadow card frame so the invoice feels like a real document, not a web form.
Always-visible "View PDF" button in the detail toolbar — open the printable PDF from anywhere on the page.
Public invoice viewer — every invoice has a shareable signed-URL link. Forward it to co-counsel or a billing admin without giving them platform access.

Two small ergonomics wins on the search experience:

View-transition morph from the hero into /search — the search bar transitions in place instead of the page hard-cutting. Subtle but it makes the directory feel faster.
Custom clear button on the search bar — the browser's native "X" was inconsistent and hard to hit; replaced with a dedicated button that's always in the right spot.

#AI Search (beta)

You can now chat with our AI search agent — describe the kind of expert you need in your own words, and the agent will refine your query, suggest relevant specialties and locations, and return a ranked match list. Powered by Groq for fast turnaround. Available on the directory; flagged behind ff_chat_agent and being rolled out gradually. If you don't see it yet, you will soon.

#April 2026 (Late)

#Richer context on education and work experience

Expert profiles now surface an optional Description under each education and work-experience entry — a short paragraph that adds context the line item alone can't (a thesis topic, a minor field of study, what the expert led in a role). If an expert's CV includes details like "Minor in Physics" or "Led a team of 5 engineers on fault-analysis tooling," those now carry through to the public profile and show up in the expert's Expert Witness Website instead of being dropped.

No change to how you search or browse — profiles with descriptions will simply read more like a resume instead of a bullet list of dates.

#Case Analysis — go from a court document to matched experts

Upload a complaint, motion, or investigation report and let Case Analysis pull out the legal issues, figure out what kind of expert you need, and surface matching experts from the Exlitem directory — all in one guided workflow.

How it works:

Upload a PDF from Dashboard → Case Analysis → New Analysis
Review the AI-generated summary of issues, claims, and expert disciplines — edit anything before approving
Match — we return a ranked list of experts, with conflict warnings on any profile that has flags worth knowing about
Draft — pre-written inquiry drafts for each shortlisted expert, fully editable
Send — choose Platform mode (we deliver the inquiry and track replies) or Copy mode (grab the drafts and send from your own email)
Track responses — record status, rate, and availability directly from the outreach card

See the full walkthrough in Case Analysis. If you don't see Case Analysis in your dashboard yet, contact [email protected] — the feature is rolling out gradually.

#Expert Witness Websites — now live

Experts on Exlitem can now publish a standalone professional website in minutes using one of six designer templates, populated automatically from their Exlitem profile. If an expert mentions a personal website, it's likely powered by this new product. Browse the template gallery at /websites.

#April 2026

#Your recent searches are saved

Click the search bar and you'll see your recent search history — no need to re-type queries you've already run. If you haven't searched yet, we show trending searches to help you get started.

#Search now understands what you mean

We rebuilt the search engine from the ground up to deliver smarter, more relevant results:

Semantic specialty matching — Searching for "brain injury" now also surfaces experts in "traumatic brain injury," "neurology," and related disciplines. The system understands specialty relationships, not just keywords.
Cross-encoder re-ranking — After the initial search, a second AI model re-scores the top results to push the most relevant experts to the top. This noticeably improves result quality for specific queries.
Intent parsing — The search bar now understands natural-language queries like "accident reconstruction expert in Houston." It automatically extracts the specialty, location, and other signals — no need to use the filter sidebar manually.
Faceted filtering — Search results now show real-time aggregations: filter by state, years of experience, or specialty based on what's actually in your results, not a static list.

#Contact experts directly from their profile

You can now send a message to any expert directly from their public profile page — even before signing in. Your message creates an inquiry that the expert can review and accept. If you're signed in, the inquiry is linked to your account and a message thread opens automatically when the expert accepts. If you're browsing anonymously, you'll get an email when the expert replies with a link to sign up and continue the conversation.

#Premium experts rank higher in relevant searches

Experts with Premium and Pro subscriptions now receive a small ranking boost in search results — but only when they're already relevant to your query. A premium subscription won't help an unrelated expert appear in your results. This means the experts investing most in their Exlitem presence are easier to find when they match your needs.

#Experts can now send you professional invoices

Experts on Exlitem can now generate and send polished PDF invoices directly from the platform. When an expert sends you an invoice, you'll receive a clean, branded document with itemized line items, custom fields (like PO numbers or case references), and clear payment terms. You can approve, request changes, or mark invoices as paid — all from the invoice link in your email.

#Search is now open to everyone

We removed the sign-in gate from expert search. You can now browse the full directory, run unlimited searches, and explore expert profiles without creating an account first. Sign in when you're ready to unlock contact details or save your searches.

#Smarter search results

We overhauled how search ranking works behind the scenes:

Better relevance — Searches now filter out unrelated results using a minimum quality threshold. If you search for "orthopedic spine surgery," you'll only see experts who genuinely match — not loosely related profiles that happened to share a single keyword.
Stopword-aware matching — Common words like "for," "in," and "the" no longer inflate how broadly your query matches. A search for "expert witness for patent litigation in Texas" correctly focuses on the three meaningful terms.
Result caps — For very broad queries that return thousands of matches, we now show the top 500 most relevant results with a clear indicator: "Showing 500 top results (12,847 total matches)." This keeps pagination fast and results meaningful.

#New search filters

Two new filter toggles are now available in the search sidebar:

On Exlitem Home — Show only experts who have claimed their profile on the platform. These experts have verified their information and are actively discoverable.
Has email — Narrow results to experts with email contact information on file, so you can reach out right away after unlocking.

#Cleaner credit checkout

The credit purchase flow is now simpler — no unnecessary form fields. Just pick your credit amount and check out.

All For Attorneys articles