How to prepare your own case well enough that a lawyer will sign it.

This is the actual method. It works whether or not you use us, and we would rather you had it either way. The goal is not to sound like a lawyer. It is to hand an attorney something so clean that their job takes forty minutes instead of six hours, which is exactly why it costs you a flat fee instead of a retainer.

Step 1: Get your records out, all of them, before you write anything

Almost every case turns on what can be proved, not what happened. Start by pulling everything into one folder while it is still available to you.

Email

Export the whole account rather than forwarding messages one at a time. Forwarded mail loses headers, and headers are what make a message evidence rather than a screenshot.

• Gmail: Google Takeout, select Mail, export as MBOX. You can filter to a label first, so make a label for the matter and drag everything relevant into it.
• Outlook or Office 365: File, Open & Export, Import/Export, Export to a file, Outlook Data File (.pst).
• Apple Mail: select the mailbox, Mailbox menu, Export Mailbox.

Texts and messages

• iPhone: Settings, then your name, iCloud, and confirm Messages is syncing, then use a desktop export tool. A full unencrypted local backup through Finder keeps the timestamps, which matters.
• Android: SMS Backup & Restore exports to XML or CSV.
• WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger: each has an in-app export. Do it per conversation.

Screenshots are worth taking too, but a screenshot is weaker evidence than an export because it is trivially editable. Take both.

Financial and official records

• Bank and credit card statements, downloaded as PDF and CSV. The CSV is what lets you total things quickly.
• Pay stubs, tax returns, benefit letters.
• The lease, the contract, the deed, the policy. The actual signed version, not the draft you were emailed.
• Anything already filed in your case. Most courts have an online portal; if not, the clerk's office will print the docket for a small fee.

Step 2: Build the timeline before you build the argument

One table. Every row is a date, what happened, and which document proves it. Nothing else. This is the single highest-value hour you will spend on your case, and it is the thing lawyers charge the most for while enjoying the least.

Rules that make the difference: use ISO dates (2025-04-02, never 04/02/25, which means two different days depending on which country the reader is from). Name every file so the name says what it is. If a row has no proof, mark it clearly, because that gap is what the other side is going to aim at.

Step 3: Find the rules that actually govern your filing

Courts reject filings on formatting more often than on merit, and a rejected filing after a deadline is a lost case with a perfectly good argument inside it. Before drafting, find:

• The court's local rules. Search "[your county] [your court] local rules". Page limits, margins, font, caption format, service requirements.
• The self-help centre. Most state court systems run one, with approved fill-in forms. If an official form exists for what you are doing, use it. A judge would rather read a completed form than a beautiful brief.
• The deadline and how it is counted. Calendar days or business days, and whether the clock starts on service or on filing. This is where people lose by a day.

We remind you to check it and link you straight to your court's case search, but we do not read your docket for you. Courts reschedule constantly, and the only reliable record is the court's own. It is your case.

Step 4: Use AI properly, which is not how most people use it

There is a longer guide to this, with the prompts to copy: drafting with AI.

Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and the rest are genuinely good at the labour in a legal document: structure, clarity, organising facts, anticipating counterarguments, turning six angry pages into two clear ones. They are unreliable at exactly the thing that gets you sanctioned.

What to actually ask it

Give it your timeline and your records first, then work in small steps rather than asking for a finished brief:

What not to ask it

• "What should I do?" That is legal advice, it does not know your jurisdiction's quirks, and it will answer confidently anyway.
• "Find cases supporting X." This is where fabrication lives. If you want authority, find it on a court website first and then ask the model to explain it.
• "Write my whole motion." You get something that reads well and says nothing, and you will not be able to answer the judge's questions about it.

Step 5: Write it the way judges actually read

• Ask for something specific in the first paragraph. The reader should know what you want and why before they know your life story.
• Short sentences. Dates, amounts, documents. "He was cruel" is worth nothing. "He stopped the support payments on 14 March, which is exhibit 9" is worth everything.
• Never insult the other party. It reads as unreliability, and every judge has seen a thousand of them.
• Deal with your worst fact yourself. If you missed three payments, say so and explain. Letting the other side reveal it makes it look like concealment.
• Number your paragraphs and your exhibits. It is how a court refers back to what you said.
• Read it aloud. Anywhere you stumble, a judge will too.

Step 6: Hand it to a lawyer before it goes anywhere near the court

An attorney reviewing a well-prepared draft is checking a specific set of things you cannot check yourself:

• Is the legal standard the right one for this court, this year?
• Is every citation real and does it say what you claim?
• Have you admitted something you did not realise was an admission?
• Is there a procedural trap here, a waiver, a missed prerequisite, a jurisdictional issue?
• Does this comply with the local rules well enough to be accepted?
• Is there a stronger argument you did not know existed?

Then they sign it. Their name on the filing means a licensed professional took responsibility for it, which is a different document in a judge's hands than the same words filed by you alone.