Build the chronology from the case documents

The contracts, letters, minutes and witness statements have arrived, and typing every date into the chronology would take days. Import them into the timeline instead: JuristIQ reads each document, proposes the events it finds, and shows you the passage each one comes from. You check each event against its source and accept it, and every accepted event stays linked to the document behind it.

Two questions decide the settings. Will you rely on these events in a pleading or in front of the court? Then review every one. Are the documents clean text or poor scans?

Import the documents

1. Open the case timeline and click Import (the inbox icon) in the toolbar on the left.

   

2. On Emails and files, click Upload files or drag the documents in. If your firm has connected SharePoint, iManage or NetDocuments, pick the documents from that tab instead. Then click Upload.

   

3. In Tailor your next steps, choose JuristIQ (AI-powered legal analysis) as the Processing Mode. Manual adds the documents without JuristIQ reading them. If JuristIQ is greyed out, you do not have access to JuristIQ.

4. Under AI instructions, tell JuristIQ what matters for this case, for example "Only events relevant to the delayed delivery under the supply agreement".

5. Click Provide extra instructions for two more settings. Leave Auto Proceed off for documents you will rely on: it skips the review and puts the events straight on the timeline. Turn on Force OCR Scan to have every page scanned, even in PDFs that already contain text, when that text cannot be trusted.

   

6. Click Upload. JuristIQ works through the documents in the background. When they are ready, a badge appears in the toolbar on the left.

Review the events, document by document

1. Click the badge in the toolbar on the left. It counts the documents that await your review.

   

2. The document opens with each date it found highlighted, and the proposed events in the panel beside it. Check each event against its highlighted passage. Fix the date or title with Edit, then click Accept. For an event that does not belong in the chronology, click the bin icon (Remove).

   

3. Events marked Low confidence are ones where JuristIQ could not read the date, or what it refers to, with confidence. Filter on Low confidence to see them together, check each against the page and accept them one by one. Accept all events accepts the rest of the document's events, but never these.

   

4. If JuristIQ missed a date, for example a handwritten date on a scanned page, click Mark a date and draw a box around it. To make an event from a passage, select the text on the page and click Add event.

   

5. When every event is accepted or removed, click Next document, or Finish review on the last one.

Settings for each situation

Tips from practice

• Import in batches. One custodian, one period or one issue at a time keeps each review short enough to do properly, and the instructions can be specific to the batch.
• Review before the chronology goes out. An event that JuristIQ proposed and nobody checked should not reach the client, counsel or the court.
• Emails need their own handling. Threads, replies and attachments are covered in turn the email correspondence into events.
• Documents with no events. A separate badge in the left toolbar lists documents where no events could be found. See handle documents the import could not read.

Adding a few events from your own reading? See add the key events by hand. Next, handle documents the import could not read.