Usage Guide
Getting Started with ChronoLaw
A step-by-step guide to building your first court-ready chronology.
Create your account and firm
Sign up with your work email. You’ll create your firm profile, which acts as the secure container for all your cases and firm members. Your 14-day free trial starts immediately with full access to all features.
Create a case
From the dashboard, create a new case with a reference (e.g., ‘Smith v NHS Trust’), client name, and case type (Personal Injury or Clinical Negligence). This organises all documents and chronology entries for this matter.
Upload your documents
Drag and drop your case files onto the upload page. We accept PDFs, Word documents (.docx), Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx), and images. Scanned documents are processed with OCR automatically. For handwritten NHS notes, enhanced AI recognition kicks in. There’s no need to pre-sort — upload everything and we’ll extract what matters.
Wait for processing
Each document is processed page by page. You’ll see real-time progress on the case page. Most documents complete in under a minute. Large bundles (500+ pages) take a few minutes. You can continue working while processing happens in the background.
Review flagged entries
Once processing completes, go to ‘Review Chronology’. Entries are colour-coded by confidence: green (high — ready to use), amber (medium — worth checking), red (low — needs verification). Click any entry to see the source page. Verify, correct, or reject entries as needed.
Use Case Chat to explore your documents
Click ‘Case Chat’ on any case to ask questions about your documents. Try the built-in templates: ‘List all GP consultations with dates’, ‘Find all medication changes’, or ‘Identify pre-existing conditions’. Every answer includes page-level citations you can click to verify.
Export for court
When your chronology is ready, export it. Choose Word (.docx) for standard chronologies, Excel (.xlsx) for Scott Schedules, or PDF. Select ‘Court-ready’ mode for a clean output with DD/MM/YYYY dates and source citations, suitable for filing. Select ‘Internal review’ to keep confidence scores and date sources.
Generate supporting documents
Use ‘Generate Document’ to create template-based documents from your chronology: letters of instruction to medical experts, chronology summaries for counsel, or schedule of loss templates. All generated documents are marked as drafts — always review before sending.
Connect your case management system
In Settings > Integrations, connect Clio to import documents directly from your matters and push completed chronologies back. Webhook notifications can alert your existing systems when processing completes.
Invite your firm
In Settings > Firm Members, invite colleagues by email. Set roles (Admin, Solicitor, Paralegal) to control access. Multiple people can work on the same case simultaneously with real-time updates.
Tips for best results
Upload complete bundles rather than individual pages — cross-document deduplication works best with all documents present.
Use the correction loop — every correction you make improves future extractions for your firm.
For clinical negligence cases, upload GP records, hospital notes, and expert reports together for a complete timeline.
Check handwritten entries carefully — while AI recognition is good, some handwriting may be misread.
Use batch processing for non-urgent cases to save 50% on processing costs.
Ready to try it?
Upload your first case and see the chronology in minutes. Full access for 14 days. Cancel anytime.