For Experts

What's New for Experts

Latest improvements to help attorneys find and connect with you on Exlitem.

20 min read

Stay up to date with the latest improvements to Exlitem. We ship updates regularly to help more attorneys discover your expertise.

#May 2026 (Late)

#Invoicing, rebuilt — one editor, smarter list, timezone-safe Overdue

The Invoices area got a top-to-bottom redesign:

One editor sheet does everything — create, edit, and send. No more separate "create" and "edit" pages, no separate detail edit form. Open any invoice from the list (or click New Invoice) and the same sheet opens with a live preview pane.
Send is now a confirm dialog instead of an easy-to-miss checkbox: choose Email to client to deliver by email with a public link, or Mark as sent to move to Sent without emailing.
List view picks up search, summary cards (Outstanding / Overdue / Paid in last 30 days), an Overdue tab, and quick row actions (Open, Copy share link, Mark paid, Send reminder, Void).
Numeric-aware sorting — INV-9 now correctly sorts before INV-10 when you sort by invoice number.
Timezone-safe Overdue — the badge now compares your invoice's due date against your local calendar date instead of UTC. No more false-positive Overdue badges if you're working in a US/EU timezone late in the day.
Settings form polished with shadcn inputs for the colour picker, payment URL, and payment methods. The brand colour preview is unchanged.
Public viewer picks up better mobile UX (sticky action bar) and a11y polish.
Unrecognised statuses no longer crash the badge — if the backend ever introduces a new status string, the UI degrades gracefully to a draft-style badge with the literal status name.

See Invoices for the full walkthrough.

#Your own public website — auto-generated, yours to publish

You can now have a polished landing page at {your-subdomain}.exlitem.com, sourced from your profile and CV. If the Exlitem team has set one up for you, you'll receive an invite link that opens a preview page where you can review the generated site before it goes live.

Publish to make the site discoverable on Google.
Skip to keep it hidden from search engines while still reachable at its URL — useful for sharing a private preview.

Already published or want to edit later? Head to Dashboard → Website to change templates, content, theme, or regenerate any AI-written copy. See Your Public Website for the full walkthrough.

#Attorneys can resend and nudge — expect a follow-up email if you haven't replied

If an attorney's inquiry has been delivered to your inbox but you haven't replied for 48 hours, they can now:

Resend the original email — the exact same email lands in your inbox again.
Send a short nudge — threaded as a reply to the original email, so it appears in the same conversation in your inbox (not a new thread). Capped at 3 nudges per inquiry, 48 hours apart.

These are normal emails (and notifications, if you have inquiry alerts enabled) — no new action required, just respond like you would to any inquiry.

#"Show on profile" for email and phone now respects your plan

Publishing your email or phone on your public profile is now a Pro / Premium feature. When you're on the Free or Unclaimed tier and you toggle either visibility switch, you'll see a new upgrade dialog instead of the toggle silently saving — the page links straight to Dashboard → Subscription to compare plans.

Pro / Premium: your show_email and show_phone toggles work exactly as before — your call which channels to publish on the public profile.
Free / Unclaimed + paid attorney unlock: the attorney who paid to unlock you will see your phone (the paid unlock pierces the toggle for direct outreach). Your email is never revealed in this path — attorneys reach you through Exlitem's message proxy instead.
Locked viewer: nothing is shown, regardless of tier or toggles.

Your contact info on file is not deleted — we still use it for unlocked attorney views and the message proxy. The change is about public display only.

#Attorneys see a clearer contact CTA on your profile

Attorneys viewing your profile now see a three-state contact button: it shows your unlocked contact directly when you've allowed it, opens a "Contact {Name} via Exlitem" message-proxy flow when contact data is on file but they can't see it (you're on free tier, or they haven't unlocked yet), and falls back to a plain "Contact {Name}" sourcing-request button only when there's truly nothing on file. This means free-tier experts no longer look the same as Pro experts who've hidden a channel — the CTA is honest about which case it is.

#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. Find it under Dashboard → Settings → Email Notifications.

Always sent sit at the top — account security, billing receipts, subscription changes. You can't turn these off.
Per-category descriptions and "What's included" expanders show exactly which emails fall under each toggle.
"Last sent X ago" appears next to each category, so you can verify a notification you expected actually went out.
"View recent notifications sent to you" opens a modal listing the last 50 events with timestamps.

A few category-specific defaults worth knowing:

New messages & inquiries — defaults to Real-time. Can switch to Daily digest, but never fully off (we won't hide messages from attorneys actively trying to reach you).
Profile & engagement nudges — defaults to Weekly digest instead of real-time, so completion reminders and milestones don't pepper your inbox.

#Daily and weekly digests

Pick Daily digest on a category and we'll collect activity through the day and send one consolidated 9 AM email instead of pinging you every time. Weekly digest is best for low-volume reminders.

Digests currently fire at 9 AM UTC for everyone. The backend 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, with a badge for unread items. It opens a dropdown of the 10 most recent events and links to a full /notifications page. Clicking a message-based notification deep-links you to the conversation. "Mark all as read" is one click.

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

#May 2026 (Mid)

#Your weekly analytics digest got a brand refresh

The Monday morning analytics email — the one with your profile views, search appearances, and search clicks for the past week — was previously a plain table on a 1-pixel grey border with no visual identity. We rebuilt it on the same email design system the rest of our transactional mail uses:

Logo header + branded card so the email actually looks like it's from Exlitem.
2×2 stat grid with bigger numbers, clearer labels, and a computed click-through rate (search clicks / search appearances).
Top search query callout when one of your searches led to multiple appearances — useful signal for understanding which keyword you're showing up for.
Subject line leads with your headline metric (e.g. "8 search appearances this week on Exlitem") so you can see the win without opening the email.
One-click unsubscribe — every marketing-class email from us now carries a real unsubscribe link, plus the CAN-SPAM-compliant footer with our postal address.

If you don't want this email, the unsubscribe link in the footer turns it off — and we honor that across every future digest.

#May 2026 (Early)

#A single Visibility toggle on every profile item

We simplified how visibility works on your profile. Each item (education, work experience, credential, address, email, phone, publication, membership, award, IP, social link) now has one Visibility toggle — Visible or Hidden — instead of the previous two-checkbox combination ("Show in profile" / "Show on website").

What changed under the hood — anything that was previously visible on either surface is still visible. Items hidden on both stay hidden.
Where to find it — Profile editor → any item → the Visibility switch in the section header.
Why — the two-checkbox version implied a meaningful distinction between "in profile" and "on website," but everyone treated them as a single visibility decision. The cleaner toggle matches how it's actually used.

If you previously had an item visible on one surface but not the other, that distinction is now consolidated into a single visible state. You can still hide anything you don't want public.

#Your invoice presentation got a major upgrade

A coordinated pass on the entire invoice surface — both how invoices look when you generate them and how clients see them.

Cleaner PDFs — invoices now render via WeasyPrint with a refreshed layout, system-installed fonts, and proper margins.
Always-visible "View PDF" button in the invoice detail toolbar so you can preview the printable version at any time.
Iframe-based live preview with a paper-shadow card while you edit, so the editor matches the final PDF exactly.
Public invoice viewer — every invoice now has a shareable, signed-URL link your client (or their billing admin) can open without an Exlitem account.
Memo support — add an internal note to your invoice that renders on the PDF for your client.
Settings preview + finalize menu — confirm details before sending; the finalize menu has clearer next actions (download, share link, send).

If you've customized invoice settings, no action needed — your existing settings carry through.

#Your inbox now shows attorney details and opens the thread on accept

Two small but high-leverage changes to how inquiries land in your dashboard:

Attorney details inline on the inquiry card — see the requester's name, firm, role, and case context before you accept. No more clicking through to figure out who's reaching out.
Accept → thread, automatically — when you accept an inquiry, you're redirected straight into the message thread instead of dropped back at the list. One fewer click between "I'll take this" and replying.

#Six new lifecycle emails — and a brand refresh on every existing one

Every transactional email from Exlitem (welcome, trial, subscription, payment, profile alerts, etc.) has been rewritten with cleaner copy and the refreshed brand. We also added six new lifecycle emails so important moments don't fall through the cracks:

Trial start, mid-trial nudge, and trial-expiry warnings
Payment failure and dunning sequence
Subscription cancellation + reactivation
Profile-claim confirmation and weekly summary

These are sent automatically based on your account state — there's nothing to opt into.

#A smoother onboarding reveal screen

If you're a new expert finishing the onboarding flow, the reveal screen — the page that confirms your profile is live and shows your public URL — has been polished: visual gaps closed, copy tightened, and the call-to-action buttons sit where you'd expect them. Doesn't change anything if you've already onboarded.

#The "Available" badge is gone

We previously showed an "Available" presence indicator on profiles, but it wasn't backed by a real availability signal — it was effectively decoration. Removed. If you want attorneys to know your current availability, mention it in your bio or profile headline. (We're working on a real availability surface — separate update when it's ready.)

#What you should do

Take a look at your profile's Visibility toggles — if you had things hidden on one surface but visible on the other, the consolidation may mean a previously partially-hidden item is now fully visible.
Send yourself a test invoice — the new presentation is significantly cleaner; worth seeing it once so you know what your clients are getting.
Make sure your bio captures availability if it matters to you — the "Available" badge is gone; bio copy is the right place for now.

#April 2026 (Late)

#Richer education and work experience

Education and work-experience entries on your profile now include an optional Description field. Use it to add context the bare title doesn't capture — a thesis topic, a minor field of study, or a short summary of what you led or built in a role.

Shows up on your public profile under each education and work-experience entry, with line breaks preserved
Flows into your Expert Witness Website — the Education section of the v2 template renders the description automatically
Auto-populated from CV uploads — if your CV mentions things like "Minor in Physics; thesis on photonics" or "Led team of 5 engineers on fault-analysis tooling," those now carry over when you upload your CV instead of being dropped

You can add or edit descriptions from the Credentials tab of the profile editor. Existing entries are unchanged — the field is purely additive.

#Redesigned profile editor with live preview

Your profile editor is now a full-width, two-pane experience: edit on the left, watch your public profile update in real time on the right. Related fields are grouped under five clearly labeled tabs — Overview, Contact, Credentials, Accomplishments, and Presence — so you can find what you're looking for without hunting.

This replaces the older narrow-column editor and removes the need to save and reload to preview your changes.

#Expert Witness Websites — build a site in under ten minutes

You can now publish a standalone professional website using one of six designer templates, populated automatically from your Exlitem profile and resume. Templates are fully mobile-responsive. Browse the gallery at /websites.

This is a new product surface for converting referrals and organic traffic outside the Exlitem directory — pair it with the speaker-bureau-style profile you've built here.

#Timesheet and billing — faster day-to-day

A stack of quality-of-life changes to how you track time and bill clients:

Always-visible sidebar timer with play/stop controls — start, pause, or stop from anywhere in your dashboard
Active timer display in the sidebar shows the current running matter and elapsed minutes at a glance
Stop-timer dialog with Discard — when you stop the timer, you can confirm, save, or discard elapsed time (helpful if you forgot to stop it yesterday)
Inline "New" actions — create a matter, client, or expense from the "New" dropdown without leaving your current page
Searchable client selector — long client lists search instantly when picking one in the timesheet
Matter name inline on activity rows — scan recent timesheet activity without clicking into each row
Non-billable rate fix — non-billable time is now correctly excluded from invoice totals
Tooltips on collapsed sidebar items — hover any icon in the collapsed sidebar to see what it is

#Invoice improvements

Stripe-inspired invoice branding — cleaner, more professional invoice PDFs and live previews
Firm details in Bill To — if you've set your firm's address, it now appears on the Bill To block of every invoice
Send Reminder button — nudge a slow-paying client from any sent invoice with one click
Unbilled stat on the invoices summary — see at-a-glance how much time is waiting to be billed
Tab-appropriate empty states — the invoices page now shows the right empty message per tab (Draft / Sent / Paid / Overdue) instead of a single generic one

#What you should do

Walk through the new profile editor — the live preview makes it much easier to polish weak sections. Spend 10 minutes on the Overview tab first; that's what attorneys see when they land on your public profile.
Consider an Expert Witness Website — if you have an existing site that's thin or out of date, the template approach gets you to parity in under an hour.
Check your firm address — it now flows through to invoices, so make sure it's the address you want on the Bill To block.

#QuickBooks Online integration — your invoices, your books, in sync

Your Exlitem invoices now sync directly to your QuickBooks Online account. Connect once, and every invoice you send from Exlitem automatically appears in QuickBooks — no more double entry. When you receive payment and it's recorded in QuickBooks, the status updates here on Exlitem too.

How it works:

Connect in seconds — Go to Dashboard → Settings → Invoices and click "Connect QuickBooks." You'll authorize through Intuit's secure OAuth flow, and you're done.
Automatic sync on send — When you send an invoice to a client on Exlitem, it's automatically created in your QuickBooks. Your client info, line items, amounts, and due dates all carry over.
Payment updates flow back — When a payment is recorded in QuickBooks (e.g., the money hits your linked bank account), Exlitem marks the invoice as paid automatically. No need to update both systems.
Disconnect anytime — If you disconnect, you can choose whether to void the synced invoices on QuickBooks or leave them as-is.

Who gets it:

Tier	Access
Premium	Included
Pro	Available as a $10/month add-on
Free	Not available

Tip: If you're a Pro subscriber, you can add QuickBooks from your Settings page. Premium subscribers have it included automatically.

#Simpler invoice workflow

We've streamlined the invoice lifecycle. Previously, clients had to approve an invoice before you could mark it paid. That approval step has been removed — the new flow is simply:

Draft → Sent → Paid

When you send an invoice, your client can view it and pay you directly. You (or QuickBooks) mark it paid when the money arrives. Fewer steps, less friction.

#What you should do

Connect QuickBooks if you use it — go to Dashboard → Settings → Invoices
Check your sent invoices — any previously "approved" invoices have been moved to "sent" status and are ready to be marked paid
Update your workflow — you no longer need to wait for client approval before confirming payment

#April 2026

#You now receive inquiries from profile visitors

Attorneys (and anyone browsing your profile) can now send you a message directly from your public profile page. These arrive as inquiries in your dashboard, just like platform inquiries. You can accept, decline, or reply — and a message thread opens automatically when you accept.

Anonymous visitors can also contact you. When someone who isn't signed in sends you a message, it appears as an "External Contact" inquiry. If you accept and reply, they'll receive your response by email along with an invitation to join the platform and continue the conversation in a thread.

#Filter inquiries by source

Your inquiries page now has source tabs: All, Attorney Inquiries, and External Contacts. This makes it easy to see which inquiries came from signed-in attorneys versus anonymous profile visitors.

#Search improvements make your profile more discoverable

We completely rebuilt the attorney search engine, and that directly benefits your visibility:

Semantic specialty matching — Attorneys searching for "brain injury" will now also find you if your listed specialties include "traumatic brain injury" or "neurology." The system understands specialty relationships beyond exact keyword matches.
Cross-encoder re-ranking — A second AI model re-scores search results to push the most relevant experts to the top. If your profile accurately reflects your expertise, you'll rank higher for relevant queries.
Natural-language search — Attorneys can now type queries like "accident reconstruction expert in Houston" and the system extracts the right specialty and location automatically. Well-documented profiles with specific specialties and locations benefit the most.
Faceted filtering — Attorneys can now filter results by state, years of experience, and specialty using real-time aggregations from their search results.

#Premium and Pro experts get a relevance boost

If you have a Premium or Pro subscription, your profile now receives a small ranking boost in search results — but only when you're already relevant to the query. The boost won't make you appear in unrelated searches, but it will help you stand out when an attorney is looking for exactly your expertise.

#What you should do

Keep your specialties specific and current — the semantic matching system rewards precise, well-documented expertise
Check your External Contacts tab — you may have inquiries from anonymous visitors that need a response
Consider upgrading to Premium or Pro — the relevance boost helps you rank higher for matching searches

#Professional invoice PDFs you can send to clients

You can now generate polished, branded PDF invoices directly from your Exlitem dashboard — no separate invoicing tool needed.

One-click PDF download — Every invoice has a "Download PDF" button that generates a clean, print-ready document with your branding, line items, totals, and payment terms.
Custom fields — Add up to 20 custom fields (like PO numbers, case references, or retainer IDs) to any invoice. These appear on both the live preview and the downloaded PDF.
Memo support — Include an internal memo on your invoices for notes visible to your client, such as payment instructions or engagement terms.
Live paper preview — See exactly how your invoice will look before sending it. The editor now shows a real-time Stripe-style paper preview that matches the final PDF output.
Your logo, your brand — If you've uploaded a logo in your invoice settings, it appears on the PDF automatically.

#Attorneys can now find you more easily

We've made significant improvements to how attorney search works — and that directly benefits your visibility:

Claimed profile filter — Attorneys can now filter search results to show only experts who have claimed their Exlitem profile. If you've signed up and verified your information, you'll appear in these filtered results. Experts who haven't claimed their profiles won't. This is a strong incentive to keep your profile current.
Contact info filter — Attorneys can filter for experts with email on file. If your profile has contact information, you're more likely to be found and contacted.

#Better search relevance means better matches

We improved the ranking algorithm so that attorneys searching for specific expertise get more precise results. If your specialties and credentials are well-documented on your profile, you'll rank higher for relevant searches. Broad, generic profiles will no longer dilute search results.

#Your profile page loads for everyone

Expert profile pages and directory listings are now fully accessible without requiring attorneys to sign in first. This means more eyeballs on your credentials, publications, and case history — even from attorneys who are just browsing.

#What you should do

To maximize your visibility with these changes:

Claim your profile if you haven't already — claimed profiles are now filterable
Add your email to your contact information — attorneys can now specifically search for experts they can reach
Keep your specialties specific — the improved search algorithm rewards precise, well-documented expertise over generic descriptions

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