Effective 30 October 2026 · Revised 4 November 2026
Tab Marshal is software for running a mock trial tab room. The tournament’s own staff make every decision it records, and the tournament is responsible for the people and data it puts in.
1. Agreement
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Colin Coleman (“Tab Marshal”, “we”, “us”). They cover tabmarshal.app, the admin site at admin.tabmarshal.app, the tab room, the team portal and the public pairings screens (together, the “Service”).
By signing in to or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information. If you use the Service for a tournament, school or other organization, you agree for it too and confirm you may do so; “you” then includes that organization. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
If your tournament has a separate written agreement with us, that agreement controls where it differs from these Terms.
2. Who may use Tab Marshal
Tab Marshal has five kinds of user. Each reaches only the parts of the Service their role allows.
Role
Who
What they can do
Administrator
Tab Marshal’s operator
Make and delete tournaments, name each tournament’s directors (up to three), and support every tournament
Directors
People the administrator names for a tournament
Everything staff can do, plus set the rules, make team codes, release results, and add or remove staff
Staff
People a director adds to a tournament
Teams, judges, rooms, rounds, ballots, individual awards and Spirit of AMTA for that tournament
Team captains
One sign-in per team, using the team number and the code the tournament gives it
See their team’s pairings, roster and released ballots (with photos of those ballots, their totals and point differential marked), and send the Spirit of AMTA form
The public
Anyone
View published pairings, judges and results, without signing in
Directors and staff sign in with Google or with a one-time code emailed to the address on their tournament’s list.
Directors and staff must be at least 18 years old. Team captains must be at least 13, and a captain under 18 needs permission from a parent or guardian and from their school or program. You may not use the Service if the law bars you from doing so, or if we have ended your access before.
3. Accounts, sign-in and team codes
Sign in only as yourself, with the email address your tournament put on its list. Each person uses their own sign-in, so the activity log shows who did what.
Keep your Google account and email inbox secure. You are responsible for what is done under your sign-in. If you think someone else has used it, tell your tournament’s directors and us at once.
Directors are responsible for keeping their staff list current, and for removing people who no longer need access.
A team code is confidential to its team. The tab room shows each code once, to print. A new code replaces the old one and signs the team out.
We may require you to sign in again, or change how sign-in works, to keep the Service secure.
4. Tournament organizers’ responsibilities
A tournament’s directors and staff decide what goes into their tournament, and the tournament is responsible for it. By entering data, you confirm that:
you have the right to enter it, including students’ and judges’ names and judges’ contact details and per-round attendance, and to have it shown as the Service shows it: on the public pairings screen, in the team portal (including photos of a team’s own ballots), and to the tournament’s staff;
the tournament has told competitors, coaches and judges how their information will be used and shown, for example in its invitation, rules or registration, and has any permission its rules, its schools or the law require;
you will not enter information the Service does not need, such as government ID numbers, student ID numbers, dates of birth, health or disability information, or financial details;
you will keep the paper ballots and other records your competition rules require;
you will handle requests from participants about their information, and we will help.
We process tournament data on the tournament’s behalf and as the Privacy Policy describes. If your organization needs a data processing agreement, ask us at info@tabmarshal.app.
5. Results are the tournament’s decisions
Tab Marshal calculates pairings, judge assignments, ballot totals, standings and awards from the rules the tournament sets, and flags the errors it finds. It does not make competition decisions.
Spirit of AMTA forms include ratings and written consideration responses. The submitting captain and authorized tournament staff can read those responses, and staff can search them when reviewing the sportsmanship award.
Staff decide which assigned judges’ ballots count. Non-scoring ballots can be incomplete and are shared with the teams only under the tournament’s full-ballot release policy, marked “does not count”; they do not contribute to competitive results.
The tournament’s directors and tab room are responsible for the pairings they publish, the ballots they enter and verify, any override they make, and the results they release. Check results before you release them.
Tab Marshal applies its reading of the AMTA Tabulation Manual (July 2026). Where the Service differs from your rules or a ruling by your officials or governing body, the rules and the officials decide.
We are not a party to disputes among teams, judges, schools and tournaments about results. Where we can, we will help a tournament show what was recorded and when, from its activity log.
6. AI ballot reading
Ballot scanning is optional. When staff scan a ballot, the photo and the names that help read it go to our AI provider, as the Privacy Policy describes.
Readings can be wrong. A misread digit or name is possible even when the reading looks confident.
Nothing read from a photo counts until a person checks it against the paper ballot. Your staff are responsible for that check.
Scan only ballots and the forms the Service asks for.
Scanning may be unavailable at times, for example during an outage at our provider. Every ballot can still be typed in by hand.
7. Acceptable use
You may use the Service only to run or take part in tournaments, and only lawfully. You must not:
sign in as someone else, share your sign-in, or open a tournament you are not on;
guess team codes, or get around Cloudflare Access or any other limit on access;
probe, scan or test the Service’s security without our written permission (report problems to info@tabmarshal.app instead);
enter false results, or change ballots or records to alter the outcome of a competition;
scrape or bulk-download the Service, or send it more requests than normal use needs;
upload malware, or anything you have no right to upload;
enter unlawful, harassing, hateful or discriminatory content, including in team names and notes;
copy, resell or rent the Service, or reverse engineer it except where the law allows;
suggest that the Service or a tournament is endorsed by an organization that has not endorsed it.
8. Your content, our software, and trademarks
Your content. A tournament’s data belongs to the tournament, or to whoever already owns it. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, process, transmit and display it, only to provide the Service as these Terms and the Privacy Policy describe. That includes sending ballot photos to our AI provider and showing what the tournament publishes. The license ends when the data is deleted, apart from copies in recovery history and those the law requires us to keep.
Our software. The Service, its code and design, and the Tab Marshal name belong to us or our licensors. We give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service under these Terms. We keep every right we do not expressly grant.
Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them without owing you anything.
Independence. Tab Marshal is independent software and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Mock Trial Association or any other mock trial association. AMTA, Spirit of AMTA and related names belong to their owners and appear only to describe what the Service supports.
9. Fees, availability, support and changes
Fees. The Service is currently provided free of charge. If we introduce fees, we will tell directors before they apply, and a tournament pays only if it agrees to them in writing.
Demo access. Demo workspaces are temporary learning environments containing fictional tournament data. Use fictional information only. Each session ends after three hours unless ended sooner, and its host may reset the data or replace the password at any time. Do not use a demo to run a real tournament or rely on its data being retained.
Availability. We work to keep the Service running during tournaments, but it can be interrupted by maintenance, outages at our providers or network problems. We do not promise any level of availability. Keep paper ballots and a way to post pairings by hand.
Support. Write to info@tabmarshal.app. We help as quickly as we reasonably can, especially during a tournament, but we do not guarantee response times.
Changes to the Service. We may add, change or remove features. If we plan to remove a feature that tournaments rely on, we will give reasonable notice where we can, and we will not make such a change to a tournament while it is under way unless security requires it.
10. Suspension, termination and your data afterwards
You may stop using the Service at any time. A tournament’s directors may ask us to delete the tournament earlier than the standard 24-month retention period after its last day. Deletion removes its records and ballot photos and anonymizes its activity records, as the Privacy Policy describes.
We may suspend or end access for a person or a tournament that breaks these Terms, puts the Service or other users at risk, or exposes us to legal liability. We will give notice where we reasonably can. We will not suspend a tournament while it is under way except to stop serious harm.
We may stop offering the Service. If we do, we will give directors at least 30 days’ notice to copy or print their results before we delete their data.
Sections 4, 8 (except the right to use the Service), 11 and 12 continue after these Terms end.
11. Disclaimers, limits on liability, and indemnity
Disclaimer. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT PROMISE THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT ITS CALCULATIONS OR BALLOT READINGS WILL BE CORRECT, OR THAT IT WILL MATCH ANY COMPETITION’S RULES.
Limit on liability. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST DATA, LOST PROFITS, OR THE OUTCOME OF ANY COMPETITION, EVEN IF WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE POSSIBLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ABOUT THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR US$100.
Some places do not allow these exclusions or limits. Where they don’t, they apply only as far as the law allows.
Indemnity. You will defend and indemnify Tab Marshal and its operator against claims, losses and reasonable legal costs that arise from data you entered without the right to, from your breach of these Terms, or from your breach of the law or anyone’s rights. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and let you take part in its defense.
12. Governing law, disputes and general terms
Governing law. The laws of North Carolina, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, govern these Terms. Any dispute goes to the state or federal courts in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and you and we agree to their jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, you keep any protection your home country’s or state’s law gives you that cannot be waived.
Resolving disputes informally first. Before filing a claim, write to info@tabmarshal.app with a description of the problem. We will both try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days before going to court.
Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms. We will post the new version here with a new effective date, and tell directors and staff by email or in the tab room at least 14 days before a significant change takes effect. If you keep using the Service after that, you accept the new Terms.
General. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service, apart from any separate written agreement with your tournament. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer these Terms without our consent; we may transfer them to a successor to the Service. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by events beyond reasonable control. These Terms create no rights for anyone else.
