Workflow template for legal and contracts
Case chronology from the matter documents
From the document set the handling attorney approved, the paralegal or associate prepares a draft chronology for that attorney: each event with its source and Bates number or page, document dates kept apart from event dates, conflicting accounts side by side, and the gaps. What matters is left to the attorney.
This workflow template prepares legal work for a lawyer to review. It gives no legal advice and has not been reviewed by a lawyer. A lawyer decides and signs.
Add it to a workflow in the Fully Powered Planner, beside the teams and roles that will run it. Book a fit call
The outcome
The handling attorney opens one draft and reads the matter in order. Every entry says who did what and when, quotes the words the document uses, and gives the Doc ID and the Bates number or page where those words sit, so any line can be checked against its page. The attorney’s time goes to reading and judging, not to assembling.
The chronology is careful in the places that usually go wrong. A memo written on Thursday about a Tuesday meeting puts the meeting on Tuesday and keeps Thursday as the memo’s own date. A meeting recorded in an email and a report becomes one entry with both sources listed. “Early April” stays “early April”, and “last Thursday” waits for the attorney instead of being turned into a date. When two documents disagree, both accounts stand side by side and neither is preferred.
It is preparation, and it stays preparation. It gives no legal advice. It decides nothing about legal meaning, merit, validity, privilege, conflicts or deadlines. It sends, files, signs and calendars nothing. It never marks an event as helping or hurting either side, never calls one key, and never fills a gap with what probably happened. Anything other than a letter or email is written as what its document records, never as fact. Relevance and significance are the attorney’s. It never says the draft is correct, complete or ready to sign. Asked for a view, whether an event helps, what to do, whether the draft can be signed or to add a case, it says that is for the attorney, names the attorney, points to the line of the draft where the attorney decides it, and says nothing more.
Who starts the work, and when
A paralegal or associate at a law firm starts it when the handling attorney asks for a chronology and has approved the set of documents to build it from. An in-house team uses it the same way: the paralegal or legal operations lead prepares it for in-house counsel, or, where the company has no lawyer of its own, for the outside counsel on the matter. Then it is addressed to that outside counsel and is never an answer for the business to act on.
Before it reads a single document, it asks how the set was screened for privilege, by whom and when, and records the attorney’s answer word for word. It also asks whether any document came from the other side or another proceeding and whether the attorney has confirmed it may be used. Without those answers it prepares nothing. It is not for writing a statement of facts or a witness outline, deciding whether a document is privileged, working out a limitation date, or keeping a project’s delay timeline.
What they supply
- The attorney’s instruction: the matter, the handling attorney, the approval of the document set and its date, and the period to cover.
- The attorney’s two answers: how the set was screened for privilege, with any documents not yet screened, and whether documents from elsewhere may be used.
- The document index, exported with the columns Doc ID, Bates start, Bates end, Type, Date, From, To and Custodian. If a header differs, the workflow template stops and asks how the columns match.
- The documents, every page, with readable text.
- The earlier version, when the chronology is being rebuilt.
- Today’s date, and the firm’s settings if it has them: the gap length worth listing (30 days unless the firm sets another) and how numeric dates in its documents are read.
What comes out
One draft, headed for the named attorney to verify, marked as not legal advice and as deciding nothing about legal meaning, merit, validity, privilege, conflicts or deadlines, and saying that nothing has been sent, filed, signed, shared or calendared:
- Events, in date order. Each has the event date, the document date, the quoted words and the place, with every source of a merged event listed and every entry from an unscreened document marked.
- Dates to place: events whose documents give only a relative or partial date, left as written for the attorney.
- Conflicting accounts, quoted side by side and not resolved.
- Gaps: long stretches with no dated event, documents referred to but not in the set, and missing Bates numbers or pages.
- Sources: one line per document, with any legend copied as printed and its privilege-screening status in the attorney’s words: screened, not yet screened, or not stated in the attorney’s answer. A status the answer does not give is never guessed.
- Changes since the earlier version, when there is one.
- Attorney to verify: one line for each point the attorney must confirm, from merged entries to who may receive the chronology.
- Check: what was read, and confirmation that no date was counted and no event was ranked.
An empty section says “None.” The paralegal or associate spot-checks the draft against the documents and gives it to the handling attorney, and to no one else.
An invented example
Illustrative example with invented data. Quarrender Vale LLP, its people, its client Hollowmere Bakeries Inc., the other party Vantry Ovenworks Ltd, everyone named in the documents, the Eastvale Commercial Court, the case number, the protective order and every document below are invented. Nothing here is a real dispute, and nothing in it says who is right.
The paralegal’s three inputs come first, in full, then what the workflow template prepares. The handling attorney’s instruction answers both opening questions, on privilege screening and on documents from the other side, so the AI assistant records her answers rather than asking. Her screening answer speaks of the HOL documents only, so the draft says, rather than guesses, that it does not cover the two VAN documents. Today’s date is Wednesday 11 November 2026. The firm has set no gap threshold or date convention, so the defaults apply: 30 calendar days, and no numeric date that could be read two ways is read.
Input 1: the handling attorney’s instruction
Forwarded by Sami Kettering, paralegal.
From: Odile Ferrant
To: Sami Kettering
Date: Tuesday 10 November 2026
Subject: Hollowmere v. Vantry: chronology
Sami, please prepare a chronology for me on Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. v.
Vantry Ovenworks Ltd, Eastvale Commercial Court case no. EC-26-0412. We act
for Hollowmere.
I approved the document set today: the eight documents in the attached
index, HOL and VAN. Period: 3 February 2026 to 3 June 2026.
Privilege: I screened the HOL documents on 4 November 2026 and withheld
nothing, except D04 (HOL-000005 to HOL-000006), Teodor Basque's email of
9 April, which was copied to the client's in-house lawyer. I have not
screened D04 yet. Build the chronology anyway and mark every entry that
comes from it.
Documents from elsewhere: the VAN documents were produced by Vantry under
the protective order entered on 2 October 2026. I confirm we may use them
for this chronology in this case.
Odile Ferrant, handling attorney, Quarrender Vale LLP
Input 2: the document index
Doc ID,Bates start,Bates end,Type,Date,From,To,Custodian
D01,HOL-000001,HOL-000002,Order confirmation,2026-02-03,Vantry Ovenworks Ltd,Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.,T. Basque
D02,HOL-000003,HOL-000003,Email,2026-03-02,Ilse Morrow (Vantry),Teodor Basque,T. Basque
D03,HOL-000004,HOL-000004,Delivery note,2026-03-31,Vantry Ovenworks Ltd,Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.,T. Basque
D04,HOL-000005,HOL-000006,Email,2026-04-09,Teodor Basque,Rana Oyelaran; cc M. Aldine,R. Oyelaran
D05,HOL-000008,HOL-000008,Email,2026-04-14,Rana Oyelaran,Teodor Basque,R. Oyelaran
D06,HOL-000009,HOL-000010,Letter,2026-06-03,Rana Oyelaran,Ilse Morrow (Vantry),R. Oyelaran
D07,VAN-000101,VAN-000101,Service report,2026-04-07,Piet Szabo (Vantry),Vantry service file,Vantry
D08,VAN-000102,VAN-000102,Email,2026-04-08,Piet Szabo,Ilse Morrow,Vantry
Input 3: the documents
D01, page HOL-000001:
VANTRY OVENWORKS LTD
ORDER CONFIRMATION No. 4471 Date: 3 February 2026
Vantry Ovenworks Ltd confirms the order from Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. of one
K-30 tunnel oven. Price: $184,000, payable in two instalments of $92,000.
Delivery to the Hollowmere plant, Mill Lane, in the week of 16 March 2026.
Installation and commissioning by Vantry within 10 working days of delivery.
HOL-000001
D01, page HOL-000002:
Accepted for Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.: Teodor Basque, 3 February 2026
For Vantry Ovenworks Ltd: Ilse Morrow, 3 February 2026
HOL-000002
D02, page HOL-000003:
From: Ilse Morrow, Vantry Ovenworks Ltd
To: Teodor Basque
Date: Monday 2 March 2026, 09:14
Subject: K-30 shipping
Teodor, the K-30 is now scheduled to leave our works on 23 March and should
reach you the following week. Sorry for the slip. Ilse
HOL-000003
D03, page HOL-000004:
VANTRY OVENWORKS LTD · DELIVERY NOTE DN-2290 Date: 31/03/2026
Delivered: 1 x K-30 tunnel oven (crated)
Received by: T. Basque Date received: 31/03/2026
Condition on receipt: crate damaged at north-east corner
HOL-000004
D04, page HOL-000005:
From: Teodor Basque
To: Rana Oyelaran
Cc: M. Aldine
Date: Thursday 9 April 2026, 17:52
Subject: Oven
Rana, update on the oven. Vantry's engineer, Piet Szabo, came on Tuesday
7 April 2026 to commission it. The conveyor stalled twice and the oven never
completed a full bake cycle while he was here. He said he would order a new
drive motor. Can we talk tomorrow about the second instalment?
HOL-000005
D04, page HOL-000006:
Teodor Basque
Operations Manager, Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.
HOL-000006
D05, page HOL-000008:
CONFIDENTIAL
From: Rana Oyelaran
To: Teodor Basque
Date: Tuesday 14 April 2026, 11:03
Subject: RE: Oven
Teodor, thanks. Ilse called me this morning: the new drive motor was fitted
last Thursday and she says the oven is fine now. Is it? Rana
HOL-000008
D06, page HOL-000009:
HOLLOWMERE BAKERIES INC. · Mill Lane
3 June 2026
Ilse Morrow, Vantry Ovenworks Ltd
Dear Ms Morrow,
K-30 tunnel oven, order confirmation 4471
Further to our letter of 24 April 2026, the K-30 has continued to stop
mid-cycle on most production days since early April 2026. We are withholding
the second instalment of $92,000 until the oven runs to specification.
HOL-000009
D06, page HOL-000010:
Yours sincerely,
Rana Oyelaran
Chief Financial Officer
HOL-000010
D07, page VAN-000101:
VANTRY OVENWORKS LTD · SERVICE REPORT SR-0619
Report date: 07 April 2026
Visit date: 07 April 2026
Site: Hollowmere Bakeries, Mill Lane
Engineer: P. Szabo
Work: commissioning of K-30 tunnel oven
Findings: conveyor stall x2 during first firing. Belt tension adjusted.
Full test cycle completed 15:40.
Customer signature: (not signed)
VAN-000101
D08, page VAN-000102:
From: Piet Szabo
To: Ilse Morrow
Date: Wednesday 8 April 2026, 08:20
Subject: Hollowmere K-30
Ilse, Hollowmere K-30: two conveyor stalls at commissioning, fixed on site by
belt adjustment. Customer not satisfied. I have put a replacement drive motor
on order as a precaution. Piet
VAN-000102
What the workflow template prepares
The note to the paralegal comes first, then the draft.
Note for Sami Kettering: no stop applied. All 8 indexed documents were
read in full. HOL-000007 is missing from the HOL run and is not in the
index. Odile Ferrant's screening answer covers the HOL documents and does
not mention D07 or D08, the VAN documents; both are recorded as
"screening not stated in the attorney's answer", not as screened, and
each has a line for her under ATTORNEY TO VERIFY. 2 entries are under
DATES TO PLACE and 1 under CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS. Still to do by people:
spot-check the draft against the documents, then give it to Odile
Ferrant. I have sent and shared nothing.
DRAFT CHRONOLOGY · FOR ODILE FERRANT TO VERIFY
Not legal advice. Decides nothing about legal meaning, merit, validity,
privilege, conflicts or deadlines. Relevance and significance not assessed.
Nothing has been sent, filed, signed, shared or calendared.
NOT SCREENED IN FULL: entries marked "Not screened" draw on documents
the attorney listed as not yet screened.
SCREENING NOT STATED: the attorney's answer does not say whether
D07 and D08 were screened. See SOURCES and ATTORNEY TO VERIFY.
Matter: Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. v. Vantry Ovenworks Ltd, Eastvale Commercial Court case no. EC-26-0412
Prepared for: Odile Ferrant, to verify
Prepared by: Sami Kettering
Built: 11 November 2026. Version 1.
Document set: 8 documents in the index approved by Odile Ferrant on 10 November 2026.
Period: 3 February 2026 to 3 June 2026
Privilege screening, as stated by Odile Ferrant on 10 November 2026: "I screened the HOL documents on 4 November 2026 and withheld nothing, except D04 (HOL-000005 to HOL-000006), Teodor Basque's email of 9 April, which was copied to the client's in-house lawyer. I have not screened D04 yet. Build the chronology anyway and mark every entry that comes from it."
Documents from elsewhere, as stated by Odile Ferrant on 10 November 2026: "the VAN documents were produced by Vantry under the protective order entered on 2 October 2026. I confirm we may use them for this chronology in this case."
EVENTS
E1. Tuesday 3 February 2026 · Vantry Ovenworks Ltd's order confirmation No. 4471 records an order from Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. for one K-30 tunnel oven; it names Teodor Basque for Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. and Ilse Morrow for Vantry Ovenworks Ltd, each with that date.
Quote: "Vantry Ovenworks Ltd confirms the order from Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. of one K-30 tunnel oven." / "Accepted for Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.: Teodor Basque, 3 February 2026" / "For Vantry Ovenworks Ltd: Ilse Morrow, 3 February 2026"
Document date: 3 February 2026
Source: D01, HOL-000001, HOL-000002
E2. Monday 2 March 2026 · Ilse Morrow emailed Teodor Basque about when the oven would leave Vantry's works.
Quote: "the K-30 is now scheduled to leave our works on 23 March and should reach you the following week."
Document date: 2 March 2026
Source: D02, HOL-000003
E3. Tuesday 31 March 2026 · Vantry Ovenworks Ltd's delivery note DN-2290 records a crated K-30 tunnel oven; the note names T. Basque with that date and records the condition of the crate.
Quote: "Delivered: 1 x K-30 tunnel oven (crated)" / "Received by: T. Basque" / "Date received: 31/03/2026" / "Condition on receipt: crate damaged at north-east corner"
Document date: 31 March 2026
Source: D03, HOL-000004
E4. ≈ "since early April 2026" · The letter of 3 June 2026 on Hollowmere Bakeries Inc.'s printed heading reports the K-30 stopping mid-cycle on most production days from early April 2026.
Quote: "the K-30 has continued to stop mid-cycle on most production days since early April 2026."
Document date: 3 June 2026
Source: D06, HOL-000009
Approximate: the source says "since early April 2026". Sorted at 1 April 2026 for reading only.
E5. Tuesday 7 April 2026 · D04 and D07 record a visit by Vantry's engineer to Hollowmere Bakeries, Mill Lane, for commissioning of the K-30; D04 names him Piet Szabo and D07 P. Szabo.
Quote: "Vantry's engineer, Piet Szabo, came on Tuesday 7 April 2026 to commission it." / "Visit date: 07 April 2026" / "Work: commissioning of K-30 tunnel oven"
Document date: 9 April 2026 (D04); 7 April 2026 (D07)
Source: D04, HOL-000005
Source: D07, VAN-000101
Not screened: D04 is on the attorney's not-yet-screened list.
See C1.
E6. Wednesday 8 April 2026 · Piet Szabo emailed Ilse Morrow about the commissioning and a replacement drive motor.
Quote: "two conveyor stalls at commissioning, fixed on site by belt adjustment. Customer not satisfied. I have put a replacement drive motor on order as a precaution."
Document date: 8 April 2026
Source: D08, VAN-000102
See C1.
E7. Thursday 9 April 2026 · Teodor Basque emailed Rana Oyelaran, copied to M. Aldine, about the oven and the second instalment.
Quote: "Rana, update on the oven." / "He said he would order a new drive motor." / "Can we talk tomorrow about the second instalment?"
Document date: 9 April 2026
Source: D04, HOL-000005
Not screened: D04 is on the attorney's not-yet-screened list.
E8. Tuesday 14 April 2026 · Rana Oyelaran emailed Teodor Basque about a call from "Ilse", as the email names her.
Quote: "Ilse called me this morning: the new drive motor was fitted last Thursday and she says the oven is fine now. Is it?"
Document date: 14 April 2026
Source: D05, HOL-000008
E9. Friday 24 April 2026 · D06 refers to a letter of this date that it calls "our letter". The set does not hold it, and D06 does not say to whom it went.
Quote: "Further to our letter of 24 April 2026"
Document date: 3 June 2026
Source: D06, HOL-000009
E10. Wednesday 3 June 2026 · Rana Oyelaran wrote to Ilse Morrow about the oven and the second instalment.
Quote: "We are withholding the second instalment of $92,000 until the oven runs to specification." / "Yours sincerely," / "Rana Oyelaran"
Document date: 3 June 2026
Source: D06, HOL-000009, HOL-000010
DATES TO PLACE
P1. "this morning" · D05 reports a call to Rana Oyelaran from Ilse, as the email names her.
Quote: "Ilse called me this morning"
Document date: 14 April 2026
Source: D05, HOL-000008
Not converted or counted. Attorney to supply the date.
P2. "last Thursday" · D05 reports the new drive motor as fitted; the email does not say who fitted it.
Quote: "the new drive motor was fitted last Thursday"
Document date: 14 April 2026
Source: D05, HOL-000008
Not converted or counted. Attorney to supply the date.
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS
C1. What each source says happened during the 7 April 2026 commissioning visit. Entries: E5, E6.
D04, HOL-000005: "The conveyor stalled twice and the oven never completed a full bake cycle while he was here."
D07, VAN-000101: "Belt tension adjusted." / "Full test cycle completed 15:40."
D08, VAN-000102: "two conveyor stalls at commissioning, fixed on site by belt adjustment." (not dated in this document; whether it describes the same event is for the attorney)
Not screened: D04 is on the attorney's not-yet-screened list.
Not resolved here.
GAPS
Periods of more than 30 days with no exact-dated event:
- 24 April 2026 (E9) to 3 June 2026 (E10): 40 days.
Referred to in the set, not in it:
- A letter of 24 April 2026 that D06 calls "our letter", referred to at D06, HOL-000009: "Further to our letter of 24 April 2026"
Missing or unreadable:
- HOL-000007: missing from the run HOL-000001 to HOL-000010; not in the index.
Supplied but not in the index, not used:
- None.
SOURCES
- D01 · HOL-000001 to HOL-000002 · Order confirmation · 3 February 2026 · Vantry Ovenworks Ltd to Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. · pages read 2 of 2 · entries E1 · no legend · screened
- D02 · HOL-000003 · Email · 2 March 2026 · Ilse Morrow (Vantry) to Teodor Basque · pages read 1 of 1 · entries E2 · no legend · screened
- D03 · HOL-000004 · Delivery note · 31 March 2026 · Vantry Ovenworks Ltd to Hollowmere Bakeries Inc. · pages read 1 of 1 · entries E3 · no legend · screened
- D04 · HOL-000005 to HOL-000006 · Email · 9 April 2026 · Teodor Basque to Rana Oyelaran; cc M. Aldine · pages read 2 of 2 · entries E5, E7, C1 · no legend · not yet screened
- D05 · HOL-000008 · Email · 14 April 2026 · Rana Oyelaran to Teodor Basque · pages read 1 of 1 · entries E8, P1, P2 · legend as printed: "CONFIDENTIAL" · screened
- D06 · HOL-000009 to HOL-000010 · Letter · 3 June 2026 · Rana Oyelaran to Ilse Morrow (Vantry) · pages read 2 of 2 · entries E4, E9, E10 · no legend · screened
- D07 · VAN-000101 · Service report · 7 April 2026 · Piet Szabo (Vantry) to Vantry service file · pages read 1 of 1 · entries E5, C1 · no legend · screening not stated in the attorney's answer
- D08 · VAN-000102 · Email · 8 April 2026 · Piet Szabo to Ilse Morrow · pages read 1 of 1 · entries E6, C1 · no legend · screening not stated in the attorney's answer
CHANGES SINCE THE EARLIER VERSION
- No earlier version supplied.
ATTORNEY TO VERIFY
[ ] E1 to E10: each entry against its source. Verified: ____
[ ] E5: merged from 2 sources (D04, D07). Same event? Confirm: ____
[ ] E4: approximate, "since early April 2026". Confirm: ____
[ ] P1: "this morning". Your date: ____
[ ] P2: "last Thursday". Your date: ____
[ ] C1: what each source says happened on 7 April 2026. Read: ____
[ ] Gaps: whether further documents are sought. Decide: ____
[ ] Not screened: D04, used at E5, E7 and C1. Screening: ____
[ ] Screening not stated: D07, used at E5 and C1. Screening: ____
[ ] Screening not stated: D08, used at E6 and C1. Screening: ____
[ ] Legend: D05 bears "CONFIDENTIAL". Read: ____
[ ] Relevance and significance of each entry.
None is marked here. Decide: ____
[ ] Who may receive this chronology. Decide: ____
CHECK
- Documents: 8 in the index; 8 read in full; 0 with pages missing or unreadable; 0 supplied but not in the index, not used.
- Screening, as the attorney's answer gives it: 5 screened; 1 not yet screened; 2 not stated in the answer. No status was inferred.
- Entries: 10 events (9 exact, 1 approximate), 2 dates to place, 1 conflicting account. 1 event drawn from more than one source.
- Event dates are copied from the sources; weekdays are added to exact dates for reading. No date was counted, converted or estimated. Day counts under GAPS are calendar days between two dates in the set or the period, for reading only. Not deadlines.
- No entry is marked as helping or hurting any party. No event appears that the set does not record.
Verified by: ____________ Date: ________
Until this line is signed, this chronology is a draft.
What to notice
- Two dates, kept apart. The 7 April visit (E5) is recorded in an email written two days later and in a report written the same day; each source keeps its own document date. The letter of 24 April (E9) appears only because the 3 June letter mentions it, so its document date is 3 June.
- One merged visit, the differences kept in one place. E5 quotes only the visit itself from D04 and D07; what each says happened during it is in C1, quoted in full there.
- Nothing converted. “The following week” in E2 and “within 10 working days of delivery” in D01 are left as the documents wrote them. “This morning” and “last Thursday” wait under DATES TO PLACE for Odile Ferrant, even though the email’s own date is known.
- One event, two sources, one disagreement. Both D04 and D07 state 7 April 2026, name Vantry and Hollowmere, and describe the commissioning visit, so they are merged. They differ on what happened during the visit, so C1 sets their words side by side and says nothing about which is right. D08 describes the commissioning too but gives it no date, so it is not merged or dated: its words join C1, marked as not dated in that document, and the attorney decides whether it is the same visit.
- Several acts, one document, one date. D01 records the order confirmed and names a person for each company, all on 3 February 2026, so E1 is one entry naming each act and quoting each passage. Its event line says the confirmation “names” Teodor Basque and Ilse Morrow; “Accepted for” stays inside the quote, and nothing says anyone “accepted” or “signed”, because those words state a legal effect the attorney weighs. D03 likewise names T. Basque, with “Received by” and “Delivered” kept inside the quote.
- What the document records, not what happened. A letter or email is written as who sent it to whom. Everything else is written as what its document records or reports: D03 “records” a crated oven, D04 and D07 “record” the visit, D05 “reports” the call and the fitted motor. The chronology never says in its own voice that an oven was delivered or a motor fitted. The letter of 24 April 2026 is described as D06 describes it, “our letter”, with no sender or recipient added, because the set does not hold it.
- Names as the documents give them. D05 says only “Ilse”, so E8, P1 and P2 say “Ilse” and do not supply a surname the email does not give.
- Places as the documents number them. None of these documents numbers its paragraphs, so each place is the Bates page alone; nothing is called a “second paragraph”.
- No ranking. No event is called key, and none is marked as helping or hurting Hollowmere or Vantry. That reading is Odile Ferrant’s.
- Privilege as she stated it. Her answer is recorded word for word. Every entry drawn from D04 is marked. Her answer speaks of the HOL documents only, so D07 and D08 are listed as “screening not stated in the attorney’s answer”, each with a line for her to answer, and are not called screened. The “CONFIDENTIAL” legend on D05 is copied as printed, and nobody but the attorney decides what it means.
- The arithmetic. The gap from Friday 24 April to Wednesday 3 June 2026 is 6 days left in April, 31 in May and 3 in June: 40 days. Every other interval between exact-dated events is 29 days or less (2 March to 31 March), so it is the only gap over 30 days. The period begins on E1’s date and ends on E10’s, so there is no stretch at either end to list.
Where it fits
- Legal and contracts: in-house teams build the same chronology on a business dispute, for in-house counsel or for the outside counsel they instruct.
- Law firms, where paralegals and associates assemble a chronology on nearly every disputed matter and the attorney would rather read it than build it.
- Insurance, where a disputed claim is pieced together from adjusters’ notes, letters, reports and payment records.
- Construction, where a payment or defects dispute rests on site records, delivery notes and years of correspondence. This is a record for the lawyer, not the project’s own programme.
- Established businesses, where every dispute has a long trail of email and files behind it.
When an order arrives on the same matter, court-order deadline notice preparation prepares the notice the attorney confirms. Matter-opening checklist preparation records who is on the matter before any of this starts.
What has to change for your company
The attorney decides the parts that carry judgment. Name who may approve a document set and answer the two opening questions: the handling attorney alone, or also a supervising attorney. Fix, once and in writing, how your review platform’s or folder’s export maps to the index columns. Set the gap length worth listing and, if your attorneys agree one, the convention for numeric dates. Add the words your firm prints on attorney work in draft. Decide where the verified chronology is kept, how versions are numbered, and who decides who may receive it.
We sit with the paralegals who build your chronologies and the attorneys who rely on them, write down how the work is really done, and set it up in the AI product your firm or company has approved: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini. Check your own policy, and any order covering documents from the other side, before matter documents go into it.
What has been checked
Fully Powered AI wrote this workflow template, and it was editorially reviewed on 11 November 2026. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer. It was tried on its invented example in Claude on 11 November 2026, and the record of that run is published with the template. It has not yet been tested in a client environment, and it has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.
Testing at your firm means running it on a closed matter whose chronology an attorney already settled, with cases written in advance: a memo dated after the meeting it records, an email that says “last Thursday”, two records of one meeting that disagree, a Bates number missing from the run, an unanswered privilege question, and a request to say which events help. The attorney checks every entry before anyone relies on it. Pilot acceptance-test preparation builds that set, and what we test before we call an AI workflow ready describes the record we keep.
Who decides
Your people keep
- What matters
- Relevance and significance of each event
- How the set was screened for privilege
- Whether documents from elsewhere may be used
- Whether the draft is ready to sign
It does not
- Gives no legal advice
- Decides nothing about meaning, merit, validity, privilege, conflicts or deadlines
- Sends, files, signs and calendars nothing
- Calls no event key
- Fills no gap with what probably happened
- Turns no relative date into a date
Questions people ask
Who is it for?
A paralegal or associate at a law firm, or the paralegal or legal operations lead of an in-house team, preparing a chronology for the handling attorney.
What do I need to supply?
The attorney’s instruction and two answers, the document index exported with its columns, and the documents, every page, with readable text.
What does it not do?
It gives no legal advice, and the attorney decides and signs. It ranks no event and fills no gap with a guess.
What do I get?
One draft for the handling attorney to verify: events in date order with the quoted words and the place, dates to place, conflicting accounts, gaps and sources.
What has been checked?
It was tried on its invented example, and the record is published with it. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer.
The full workflow template
Everything above is the outline. The complete workflow template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.
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Next step
Put this workflow template to work for your team: on your plan, or built with you in a sprint.
Build this in a sprint
In a sprint, Fully Powered adapts this workflow template to your rules, proves it on your own work and puts it in the hands of the roles that own it.
Two ways to begin: