Chronology Builder

Turn discovery documents, contracts, and case files into a clean timeline of events with sourced citations

Chronology Builder reads through your documents and pulls out every date, deadline, and event - then organizes them into a single chronological timeline you can hand to a partner, attach to a brief, or work from at trial.

When To Use It

Statement of facts

Build the chronological backbone of a motion or trial brief in minutes, with every date sourced.

Deposition prep

Lock down the sequence of events before questioning a witness whose account may shift.

Deal reconstruction

Reconstruct a transaction timeline from a folder of emails, contracts, term sheets, and amendments.

Regulatory investigations

Map subpoenas, audit dates, notices of violation, and response deadlines into one timeline.

Internal investigations

Trace who knew what and when across a document set during an internal probe.

Matter onboarding

Walk into a new matter and get the case story fast - the chronology is the partner-level briefing.

How It Works

1. Upload or pick documents

   Upload to a matter, or pick documents already in the matter.

2. Open Chronology Builder

   Launch from the tools menu inside the matter.

3. Automatic extraction

   The tool extracts every dated event and the surrounding context.

4. Source linking

   Each event links back to the exact passage in the source document.

5. Review and edit

   Add manual events, correct ambiguous dates, merge duplicates, and tag entries.

6. Export

   Push to Word memo, PDF, or .xlsx with citations preserved.

What Gets Extracted

Event Type	Examples
Contract dates	Effective date, term expiration, notice periods, renewal windows
Performance events	Deliveries, payments, breach notices, cure periods
Communications	Demand letters, meet-and-confer dates, settlement offers
Litigation milestones	Filing dates, service of process, discovery deadlines, hearing dates
Regulatory events	Subpoenas, audit dates, notice of violation, response deadlines
Custom events	Anything you add manually with your own description

Source-Backed Events

Every event in the timeline links back to the exact passage in the source document. Click any event to:

• Open the source document at the page where the event was extracted
• See the highlighted passage that contains the date
• Verify the surrounding context before relying on the entry

If the tool extracts a date you do not need, remove it with one click. If it misses one, add it manually with your own description and source reference.

Ambiguous dates (“March 2024”, “Q3 last year”, “the following Tuesday”) are extracted as best-effort and flagged. Always confirm the precise date before relying on the entry in a brief or deposition outline.

Views

Timeline View

Vertical timeline with dates on the left and event descriptions on the right. Good for presentations and client memos.

Table View

Sortable, filterable spreadsheet. Filter by date range, document, or event type. Good for working drafts and discovery prep.

Editing the Chronology

• Add an event - Insert manual entries that the tool did not extract
• Edit dates - Correct ambiguous or partial dates (e.g., “March 2024” can be set to a specific day)
• Reorder - Group events that happened on the same day in the order you want
• Merge - Combine multiple references to the same event from different documents
• Tag - Apply labels like “Disputed”, “Privileged”, or custom tags for filtering

Export

Format	Use Case
Word (.docx)	Drop directly into a statement of facts or memo
PDF	Share with co-counsel or attach to a filing
Spreadsheet (.xlsx)	Continue working in your own format, or use as an exhibit index

Each exported chronology preserves the source citations so your team can verify any entry against the underlying document.

Tips

Scope by folder or tag. Run on a specific subset (only emails, only contracts, only pleadings) for a focused timeline instead of one giant blob.

Combine with Matters. Each matter has its own chronology; you can also pull a single timeline across every document in the case for a full case story.

Run iteratively. Add new documents as discovery comes in and re-run the chronology to see the updated picture - the tool preserves your manual edits across runs.

Build a chronology

Chronology Builder - turn a document folder into a sourced, partner-ready statement of facts.

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Matters & Workspaces

Scope documents to a single case.

Document Search

Ask questions across your matter documents.

Compare Documents

See how two versions of a document differ.

Document Matrix

Turn the same document set into a comparative spreadsheet.