Hearing preparation
A private workspace for getting ready: hearing desks with speaking cards, the facts you can support, records you still need, filing status, and backups of it all.
Preparation is your private working area for everything between "I have a hearing" and "I'm walking in". It keeps track of what you need to say, what you can support, what's missing, and what's been filed — and it keeps a history of every change so nothing gets lost.
Open it from a court case's Preparation tab. It's private to the case owner (and, for firms, assigned staff), uses no AI, and works on every plan.
How it's laid out#
The header shows counters for ready tasks, open questions, unresolved facts, and missing records, with a filter for the court case. Sections are listed on the left. In every section you can Add record, search, edit, and remove — removed records stay in the history.
Every record has a title, a court case, notes, and sources: links to the evidence, documents, or messages that back it up, down to the page, paragraph, or timestamp.
Hearing desks#
A hearing desk is your preparation for one hearing.
- Speaking cards / reading order — what you want to say, in order.
- Private notes — never included in court binder exports.
- Readiness — preparing or ready.
- Outcome and next steps — filled in afterwards.
Reading view shows your cards in large type, for glancing at on the day. Complete & preserve snapshot freezes the desk as it was. Carry forward starts the next hearing's desk from this one.
The other sections#
| Section | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Dependency board | Tasks that depend on other tasks (ready, waiting, contingent, parked, done). Import existing to-dos brings your to-dos in. |
| Decision desk | Open questions and disagreements, and how they were resolved. |
| Facts & corrections | Each fact marked asserted, verified, derived, or unresolved, with the dates it's true for. Corrections point to the fact they replace, and replaced facts stay visible. |
| Records & production | Records you need, tracked from missing → requested → received → reviewed → produced. |
| Filing center | Where each filing stands (draft through served), with dates, receipts, and a package checklist. It records status only — it doesn't file anything. |
| Binders & printing | Quick binder assembly; the full tool is in Binders. |
| Docket changes | Paste docket entries to see what's new or changed since last time. |
| Reference library | Rules, forms, and guides you've looked up, with where and when you got them and when to recheck. |
| People & relationships | Who's who, and whether each relationship is documented or unconfirmed. |
| Financial scenarios | Side-by-side worksheet estimates. These are your own comparisons — the app doesn't calculate legal obligations. |
| Skill reviews | A checklist review of a letter, filing, or hearing plan. It flags leftover placeholders, accusatory words, a request that isn't up front, and unresolved facts in the text. A recorded review goes back to "Needs review again" when the draft or its sources change. |
Search everything searches preparation records together with your documents, evidence, and messages.
History & backups#
Every change is saved as a revision. From History & backups you can download recent revisions, view completed hearing snapshots, and:
- Export preparation backup / Restore preparation — a JSON backup of this workspace.
- Export evidence + manifest — every original evidence file with a manifest.
- Export transcripts — every transcript and extracted text.
See Binders & exports for details and limits.
Limits#
Up to 1,000 records per section and 4 MB of preparation data per case. Source pickers show your 1,000 most recent items of each type.