Chronologies

Chronologies automatically extract a structured timeline of events from the documents in a project. CourtAid scans all your uploaded evidence and builds a fact matrix — events, dates, parties, quotes, and source links — that you can review, edit, and export.

Chronology table with events, parties, evidence, and sources

Chronologies are vital to court hearings and a requirement for most court appearances. CourtAid's chronology tool gives you an accurate first draft from your evidence documents in about a minute.

How it works

When you generate a chronology, CourtAid reads every document in the project and extracts:

• Events — what happened, described in a short factual statement

• Dates (and times where available)

• Parties — the people and organisations involved in each event

• Evidence / quotes — the exact text from the source document supporting each event

• Source — a link back to the document the fact came from

• Relevance — an AI estimate of how important each extracted fact is

The result is a sortable table, ordered by date, that forms a first-draft fact matrix for your matter.

Generating a chronology

Step 1 — Create a project and upload documents

Chronologies are built from a project's documents, so first create a project and upload your relevant evidence — pleadings, correspondence, emails, contracts, transcripts. Scanned PDFs are processed automatically (see PDF enrichment).

Step 2 — Generate

Click Generate Chronology — either from the Chronologies page (sidebar → Projects → Chronologies) or from a project.

Generate Chronology modal

In the dialog:

1. Select the Project to build the chronology from (or upload new documents)

2. Optionally give it a Name — e.g. "Smith v Jones – Liability Timeline"

3. Click Generate

Processing takes around a minute, depending on how many files are in the project.

Step 3 — Review the fact matrix

Once complete, CourtAid presents the extracted events in a table with columns for Date, Event Description, Parties, Evidence / Quote, Relevance, and Source.

Relevance scores

Each event has a relevance indicator — the AI's estimate of how important that extracted fact is. It's shown as a coloured signal:

Tier	Meaning
Green (high)	Likely a key fact
Amber (medium)	Moderately relevant
Red (low)	Lower importance

Use relevance to quickly focus on the most significant events, but always apply your own judgement.

Editing events

The chronology is fully editable. Click any event to open the Event Inspector, where you can adjust the extracted details.

Event Inspector for editing a chronology entry

You can edit:

• Description — refine or correct the event summary

• Date and time — fix or add precise dates

• Parties — add or remove the people and organisations involved

• Quote / evidence — adjust the supporting text

You can also add new events manually with Add Event, and remove events that aren't relevant.

Exporting

When you're happy with the chronology, click Export and download it as a CSV file (also available as JSON). The exported fact matrix is ready for court submissions or document review.

Best practice

The chronology tool is a quick way to get an accurate first draft based on your evidence documents. Before submitting to court, it is highly recommended that you:

• Review every extracted event against the source document

• Adjust dates, parties, and facts for accuracy

• Correlate entries to the correct document page references

• Remove or merge duplicate or low-relevance events

CourtAid provides research and drafting assistance, not legal advice. Always verify the chronology against your source documents before relying on it or submitting it to a court.

Related

• Projects — chronologies are built from project documents

• PDF enrichment — scanned documents are made searchable automatically

• Tabular View — extract structured data across documents in a table