Service

Case tracking software development

For heads of legal, supervising solicitors and paralegal service managers who need deadlines calculated from events by their own rules, reminders that escalate, and a clear record of who is responsible for each date.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A small litigation team or in-house legal function usually tracks deadlines in a spreadsheet, a shared calendar and the memory of one careful person.

A claim is served; somebody counts the days on a desk calendar, forgets a bank holiday, and enters a date one day late.
The reminder goes into the calendar of the handler who is on leave that week, and nobody else is reminded.
When a handler leaves, their open cases are reassigned in a meeting and the dates on their calendar go with them.

Where it gets harder

Hearings are in one diary, filing dates in another, and internal review dates in a third, so a supervisor who asks "what is due this fortnight across the team" gets three partial answers.

Deadline extensions agreed with the other side are recorded in an email thread, so the spreadsheet still shows the old date.
There is no record of who was responsible on the day a date was missed, which matters when the question is asked afterwards.
The team is not careless; the tools simply have no idea what a deadline is.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom case and deadline build normally covers:

A case register with reference Parties, case type and status
Deadline rules that calculate dates from events Such as a number of days after service or before a hearing, using working-day calendars that carry the holidays the team specifies
Multi-level reminders by email and dashboard at intervals set per rule
Responsibility assignment and reassignment With an audit of who held each deadline and when it changed
Case task checklists per case type
A court or hearing diary across the team
Document attachment per deadline So the evidence of compliance sits with the date
Overdue and upcoming reports per handler and per supervisor

We begin by collecting the team's actual deadline rules, case type by case type, and the calendars they need; then we follow two recent cases through the current spreadsheet to see where dates were calculated, changed and missed. The stages in the scope document are: open case, apply rules, reminders, complete or extend, report.

Deliberately out of scope

Time recording, billing, client money and document management beyond attachments to a deadline, all of which belong to practice management

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

An in-house team in a manufacturing group handles contract disputes, employment claims and regulatory correspondence across three jurisdictions with different working-day calendars, needs limitation and procedural rules per jurisdiction, wants reminders to escalate to the general counsel after a set number of unacknowledged days, and must feed hearing dates into the group's calendar system. The per-jurisdiction rule sets and the calendar feed are what make it a custom build.

Deliverables

What you receive

Discovery notes capturing the team's deadline rules per case type and jurisdiction
A scope document naming each case stage, the reminder escalation ladder and what is out of scope
Design of the case view, the team deadline board and the hearing diary on desktop and mobile
The build, deployed to your hosting or ours, with rule calculation tested against worked examples the team provides
Migration of open cases and their current deadlines from spreadsheets or calendars, where relevant
Training for supervisors, handlers and assistants, with a short written guide
Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

Onboarding

Access to the current spreadsheet, calendars and any case list, plus the named supervisor who owns the deadline rules.
Project stage: Onboarding
Planning

Rule-gathering sessions with the supervisor and a handler per case type; calendars, escalation ladder and the scope document are agreed.
Project stage: Planning
Design

Clickable designs of the case view, the deadline board and the hearing diary, checked against a real fortnight of the team's work.
Project stage: Design
Development

Built in stages: register and calendars first, then rules and reminders, then responsibility audit and checklists, then the diary and reports.
Project stage: Development
Client review

The team enters a set of past cases with known dates and confirms the rules produce the same deadlines, including around holidays.
Project stage: Client review
Revisions

Rule, calendar and reminder adjustments from the review are made and re-checked against the worked examples.
Project stage: Revisions
Ready for launch

Open cases migrated with their deadlines verified by the supervisor, reminders tested to real inboxes, launch checklist signed off.
Project stage: Ready for launch
Delivered

The spreadsheet is retired; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.
Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

Calendar platforms so hearings and deadlines appear in handlers' own diaries
Email providers for reminder delivery and escalation
Practice management or matter systems that hold the wider file
Document storage where evidence of compliance is already kept
Group directory or single sign-on for in-house teams
External official portals for court listings, assessed per portal as an integration opportunity rather than a ready feature

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

An in-house team across three jurisdictions

The situation

An in-house legal team in a manufacturing group handled disputes, employment claims and regulatory correspondence across three jurisdictions, each with its own working-day calendar and procedural rules.

Why it is a custom build

The reason this needs a custom build is the rule engine across jurisdictions: a generic task tool can hold a date but cannot derive one from an event using a calendar the team controls.

The scope we would propose

A calendar per jurisdiction maintained by the supervisor, rule sets attached to case types and jurisdictions so a served claim generates its chain of dates automatically
An escalation ladder that moves an unacknowledged reminder from handler to supervisor to general counsel
A hearing diary fed into the group's calendar system
A monthly report of every deadline met, extended or missed with the responsible person at the time

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

Number of case types and how many deadline rules each carries
Jurisdictions and working-day calendars that must be maintained
Reminder channels and the escalation ladder required
Number of handlers and supervisors, and the reporting each needs
Volume of open cases and deadlines to migrate from spreadsheets
Hearing diary and whether it must feed an existing calendar system
Integration with a matter system or document store
Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is a custom build the right choice?

When your rules, calendars or escalation needs go beyond what the case and deadline tracking package handles through configuration. During discovery we lay your deadline rules against the package and say plainly whether multiple jurisdictions, calendar feeds or bespoke reporting need custom work.

How are deadlines calculated?

Each rule describes a date in terms of an event, a count and a calendar, such as a number of working days after service. When the event date is entered, the system produces the deadline, shows the calculation and lets a supervisor override it with a reason that stays on the audit trail.

Does it keep us compliant with court rules?

No software can promise that. The build calculates dates from rules your team writes and maintains, reminds the right people and records who was responsible. Whether the rules are correct and up to date remains the team's professional responsibility.

What happens when a deadline is extended?

The handler records the extension with the new date, the reason and any document evidencing the agreement. The old date stays visible in the history, dependent deadlines are recalculated where the rule says so, and the reminder schedule restarts from the new date.

Who owns the system afterwards?

The team does. Source code and data are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional, separately agreed and movable to another provider.

Get a project quote for case and deadline tracking software

Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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Case tracking software development

What goes wrong today

What the build covers

Deliberately out of scope

When the scope grows

What you receive

How a project runs

Onboarding

Planning

Design

Development

Client review

Revisions

Ready for launch

Delivered