How the app is organized
Your case, its court cases, and the records inside them — how everything in Custody Commander fits together, and where each tool lives.
Family court matters rarely come as one tidy file. A custody case can sit alongside a protective order, a child-support case, and a later motion to modify. Custody Commander is built around that reality: one case file for your whole situation, with a separate court case for each court file inside it.
The three layers#
| Layer | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Your account | You — your sign-in, plan, and settings. Each account has one workspace. | jordan@example.com |
| Your case (the matter) | The umbrella for your whole family-court situation. It has a name and your role (petitioner, respondent, plaintiff, defendant, or other). | Smith v. Smith |
| Court cases | Each individual court file, with its own case number, court, judge, state, and hearings. | Custody 24-CVD-1234 · Protective order 24-CVD-5678 |
Your records — evidence, documents, messages, to-dos, and timeline events — belong to your case, and can be linked to one or more court cases. That's why the same photo can support both your custody case and your protective-order case without being uploaded twice.
Where each tool lives#
| Tool | Find it | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cases | Sidebar → Cases | Your court cases and the hub for everything inside them. |
| Overview | Sidebar → Overview | Your cases at a glance: counts, upcoming dates, issues, and quick exports. |
| Evidence | Case → Evidence tab | Files, extraction, exhibits, folders, and message imports. |
| Messages | Case → Evidence → Import messages | Imported text and chat logs, AI search, and message-log exports. |
| Documents | Case → Documents tab | Writing, templates, AI drafts, version history, and exports. |
| Binders | Case → Binders tab | Tabbed hearing binders in court and private versions. |
| Preparation | Case → Preparation tab | Hearing desks, facts, records, filing status, and backups. |
| Timeline | Sidebar → Timeline, or the case tab | Everything dated, across all your court cases. |
| To-Dos | Sidebar → To-Dos, or the case tab | Tasks and deadlines, tied to a case or a hearing. |
| Comms Guard | Sidebar → Comms Guard | Draft and tone-check messages to the other side. |
| Mediation | Sidebar → Mediation | Practice sessions and live what-to-say coaching. |
| Assistant | Sidebar → Assistant, or the chat bubble | Ask about your case and have organizing work done for you. |
| Sharing | Sidebar → Sharing | Invite an attorney, advocate, or co-parent and control what they see. |
| API & MCP | Sidebar → API & MCP | API tokens and connecting your own AI tools. |
How records connect#
The app gets more useful as records link to each other. A few connections do most of the work:
- Event dates put evidence on the Timeline. Give a photo the date it was taken and it appears in your timeline next to hearings and events.
- Issues group evidence by point. Tag each item with the issues it supports, then filter by issue when you prepare a document or hearing.
- Exhibit numbers flow into exports. Number an item once and that number is used in your exhibit PDF, Evidence Index, and court documents that cite it.
- Hearings pull material together. Link evidence, documents, to-dos, and binders to a hearing to see everything for that day in one place.
- Case details fill in templates. Your case caption, role, case number, judge, and next hearing are filled into document templates automatically.
Where AI is used — and where it isn't#
AI helps with the tedious parts: reading text out of screenshots and PDFs, drafting from your instructions, tone-checking messages, answering questions about your records, and coaching you in mediation. Everything AI produces is a draft for you to review, and AI output is kept separate from what you've confirmed.
Organizing tools — uploading, folders, tags, the timeline, to-dos, hearings, writing documents yourself, binders, and every export — don't use AI and work on every plan. See Plans, trial & AI operations for how AI usage is counted.
The software helps you organize and write. It doesn't choose what to file, what to argue, or predict what a court will do — and when you ask it to, it will tell you so. A licensed attorney or your court's self-help center can help with those questions.