The litigation evidence engine
Brief the chaos into court-ready exhibits.
A case arrives as a 10,000-line text export, a shoebox of screenshots, and a deadline. CourtBriefly turns that mess into a chronological, Bates-stamped, hash-certified exhibit set — with an index and an authentication declaration — in an afternoon, not a weekend. Built for paralegals, attorneys, and people representing themselves.
One workflow, every matter type
The evidence problem is the same in every courtroom.
Texts, emails, photos, and documents have to become numbered, dated, authenticated exhibits — whatever the caption says. CourtBriefly started in family court and now runs the same disciplined pipeline across the matters paralegals handle most.
Family & custody
Custody, support, divorce, and protective-order matters — message logs, incident timelines, and exhibit packets the court expects.
Eviction & landlord-tenant
Notice timelines, payment records, and tenant-communication logs assembled into a clean, dated exhibit set.
Small claims
Turn a dispute's worth of receipts, texts, and photos into a self-explaining packet a pro se litigant or paralegal can file.
Breach of contract
Marshal the email trail and the signed docs, in order, with every page numbered and integrity-hashed.
General civil litigation
Discovery dumps and exhibit prep for litigators who need order fast and a defensible chain of custody.
Protective orders & DV
Sensitive matters handled with preserved originals, audit logs, and authentication built for the record.
Why exhibit prep eats your week
The facts are strong. Getting them admissible is the work.
The billable hours and the all-nighters disappear into the same three places — the gap between what a client hands you and what a court will accept.
Raw, unusable exports
A client sends a 10,000-line message export, HEIC photos, and forwarded emails with no dates and no order. Useful — once someone spends a day on it.
The authentication burden
Opposing counsel asks how you know the screenshot wasn't altered. Without a hash, preserved original, and chain of custody, your strongest exhibit wobbles.
Hand-numbering at 2 a.m.
"Produce the messages" turns into manually Bates-stamping 200 pages the night before a hearing — the lowest-leverage, highest-risk hour of the case.
What CourtBriefly is — and isn't
CourtBriefly is litigation-support software, not a law firm, and it does not give legal advice. It organizes, authenticates, and formats the evidence you already have. Whether something is admissible or persuasive is a call for the attorney on the matter — our job is to make sure it's ready when they decide.
One platform, four tools
Ingest, organize, authenticate, export.
Each tool stands alone, and all four feed one shared case file. Evidence you capture, messages you extract, and communications you log land in the same matter — searchable, dated, and export-ready.
Evidence Helper Live
Bulk-ingest screenshots, photos, and documents. AI reads the text out of images, your team tags and maps each item to the issues in the matter, and you export exhibit-ready packets — originals preserved and hashed.
Explore Evidence Helper →Message Extractor Live
The flagship: drop in a text, WhatsApp, or email export and get a paginated, Bates-stamped, hash-certified PDF message log — with an index and an authentication declaration. The 10,000-line dump becomes the exhibit.
Explore Message Extractor →Case Builder Coming soon
The whole matter in one place: master timeline, documents by category, arguments mapped to evidence, deadlines — plus a clean hearing mode for the courtroom or Zoom.
Explore Case Builder →Comms Guard Coming soon
A reviewed, timestamped log of client or party communications, on any channel — tone and red-flag checks before send, and a clean record afterward. Works even when the other side uses nothing.
Explore Comms Guard →How it works
From export to exhibit in three moves.
Ingest the dump
Upload message exports, screenshots, photos, and documents. Originals are preserved untouched and SHA-256 hashed the moment they arrive.
Brief it
CourtBriefly orders messages chronologically, AI reads text out of images for your review, and your team tags, dates, and maps everything to the matter's issues.
Export the record
Generate a Bates-stamped, paginated PDF log or exhibit packet — with an index and an authentication declaration — ready to file, serve, or hand to the attorney.
Defensible by construction
Built so the exhibit survives the objection.
Authentication, built in
SHA-256 hash at ingest, preserved originals, EXIF retained, and an append-only audit log — the foundation of an FRE 901/902-style authentication story, attached to the export.
Bates numbering that just works
Consistent, configurable Bates prefixes and ranges across every page of every exhibit — no manual stamping, no gaps, no duplicates.
The matter is yours
Export the complete case bundle — originals included — at any time. Closing a matter or ending a plan never means losing the record.
Pricing
From a single matter to the whole firm.
Start free on one matter. Pay per matter when you need a one-off log, per seat when it's part of the job, or license the firm.
Solo
For pro se litigants and solo practitioners.
$0 to start
Free tier, then $19/mo
- 1 active matter free
- Bates-stamped exports
- AI message extraction
Professional
For working paralegals and small firms.
$49/seat/mo
Unlimited matters per seat
- Unlimited matters & exhibits
- All four platform tools
- Custom Bates prefixes & templates
Firm
For multi-seat teams that need control.
Custom
Volume seats & onboarding
- Shared matters & roles
- SSO & data-retention controls
- Priority support
Just need one log? The one-time Message Log Package starts at $29 per matter. See full pricing →
Where it came from
Born in a real case. Hardened into a platform.
"I had three case numbers running at once and a folder of thousands of screenshots, and I built the tooling I needed to brief it all into something a court could actually use. It worked. Then every paralegal I showed it to said the same thing: I need this for everything on my desk."
CourtBriefly is the productized version of evidence tooling first built for one real, high-stakes case — now generalized for paralegals, attorneys, and self-represented litigants across matter types. Its consumer-facing front door for family-court self-help is Custody Commander; both run on the same engine and are part of Firmbinder LLC.
Questions, answered straight
Frequently asked questions
Is CourtBriefly a law firm or legal advice?
No. CourtBriefly is litigation-support software. It organizes, authenticates, and formats evidence; it does not provide legal advice, evaluate a case, or predict how a court will rule. Those are decisions for the licensed attorney on the matter.
What matter types does it handle?
Anything where evidence has to become exhibits: family and custody, eviction and landlord-tenant, small claims, breach of contract, general civil litigation, and protective-order matters. The pipeline — ingest, order, authenticate, Bates-stamp, export — is the same regardless of caption.
How does the authentication / chain of custody work?
Every file is SHA-256 hashed at ingest, originals are preserved byte-for-byte with EXIF intact, and an append-only audit log records every action. Exports include an authentication declaration summarizing that record — the groundwork for FRE 901/902-style authentication. Admissibility is always the attorney's call; we supply the evidentiary scaffolding.
Can a whole team work a matter?
Yes. On Professional and Firm plans, multiple seats can share matters with roles, and the audit log attributes every action. Firm plans add SSO and data-retention controls.
How is the AI used, and is it reliable?
AI handles the tedious parts — reading text out of screenshots, ordering messages, suggesting tags — and every output is reviewed before it's confirmed. AI results and human corrections are stored separately, so the record always distinguishes what the machine produced from what a person verified.
How does this relate to Custody Commander?
Custody Commander is the consumer-facing brand for self-represented parents in family court. It runs on the CourtBriefly engine — a consumer who signs up there is creating an account in the same platform. Both are part of Firmbinder LLC.
The next dump is coming. Be ready to brief it.
Start free on your next matter — turn the export into a Bates-stamped exhibit set before you decide on a plan.