Court deadlines calendared from scheduling orders
Scheduling orders read, each deadline counted and moved off weekends and holidays, then held for an attorney to confirm. For small law firms in NE Arkansas.
Demonstration using synthetic data
Every record, name, address, and log entry on this page is invented for the demonstration. No client, client system, or production record is involved, and no business result is claimed.
- Author
- Tanner Rusher
- Published
- Written for
- Law firms
Who this is for
Small litigation practices in Jonesboro and Northeast Arkansas where a paralegal or the attorney reads each scheduling order and counts out the deadlines by hand. If calendaring a new order means a calculator, a court holiday list and a second person double-checking the math, this is that job.
The problem, in your words
Each order says it a little differently. One deadline is a fixed date, the next is “30 days after service,” and a third depends on another deadline. A date lands on a Saturday or a holiday and has to move. It is careful, repetitive work, and the cost of one wrong date is high enough that it gets done twice.
What happens, step by step
- A new scheduling order is saved where your firm keeps its case files.
- The order is read for its dates and its day-count phrases.
- Each deadline is counted under your firm’s rules, and any that falls on a weekend or holiday is moved.
- Reminders are set ahead of each deadline, for example 14, 7 and 1 days out.
- A deadline that depends on a date the order does not give, such as the date of service, goes to an attorney instead of being guessed.
- The proposed calendar waits for an attorney to confirm it.
What the attorney approves
An attorney confirms every date before it goes on the firm’s calendar. The counting rules and the holiday list are written down where the firm can read and correct them, and the court’s order always governs. Case files stay inside the firm’s own accounts, and nothing about a matter is shared outside it.
What the example run showed
The video is a real run on fictional data: sixty made-up civil scheduling orders with 408 deadlines in all. The run dated 369 of them, every one matching an answer key, and moved 72 off a weekend or holiday. 39 went to an attorney: 38 depended on a date the order did not give, and one was worded in an unusual way. The counting rules and holiday list in the run were examples made for the demonstration, not any real court’s rules.
Setting it up in your firm
This is office automation built around your calendar and your case files, with confidentiality kept from the first step. It starts with a 20-minute call about how orders come in and who calendars them today. If it fits, a Workflow Review maps the job, and an Automation Pilot builds it to your firm’s rules. I’m in Jonesboro and can meet at your office.