What Is the "Rulings" Tab on the Smart Search Results Page?

The Trellis database aggregates all tentative rulings in California and makes them keyword searchable.

In California, civil state trial court judges have the option of issuing tentative rulings on specific motions prior to motion hearings.  

What is a Tentative Ruling?  A tentative ruling is a preliminary ruling that states how a court intends to rule on a specific motion, and courts may modify or reverse tentative rulings prior to issuing their final ruling, hence the term “tentative.” Tentative rulings are usually posted on the court’s website at least 24 hours prior to each law and motion hearing for civil cases, but are usually taken down from the court’s website after several days. 

The Trellis database aggregates all tentative rulings in California and makes them keyword searchable from a single interface, preserving this valuable judicial data and case intel.  

You may access these rulings by running a search query on the Smart Search tab. Smart Search will search the text of state trial court tentative rulings and return results based on your search query.