DocketDrafter in Practice
One Tuesday at a Texas appellate firm.
DocketDrafter works inside Claude and ChatGPT. Ask, and your AI prepares briefs in your firm’s format: the contents and index of authorities built from the brief’s own headings and citations, the appendix indexed and cross-referenced, the certificate of compliance counting the sections the rule counts.
Ask your AI what this would do for your firm
9:10 AM
9:10 AM
The appellee’s brief came in. The reply is due Friday.
The reply is waiting on the partner, not the other way around.
Claude CoworkArdsley – reply brief Build the shell for the reply to the appellee’s brief. Start from our appellants’ brief and lay it out the way our last reply was laid out.Read 4 files, used DocketDrafterThe shell is up, cover and all: the three issues answered in the order the response raised them, the standards section subdivided by kind of review rather than by party the way your briefs do it, and a posture paragraph opening each part with its record cites. The argument itself is yours to direct.
Reply Brief shell – Ardsley Property Group v. Mercer Facility ServicesDocument · DOCX11:30 AM
11:30 AM
The appendix grew in the order the documents turned up. It should run in the order the brief argues them.
Change the appendix. Don’t chase the references.
Claude CoworkArdsley – appendix Reorder the whole appendix to follow the brief’s argument, and add the jury charge.Used DocketDrafterReordered, with the jury charge in at its place. All six tabs have new letters, and the twenty-three references to them in the brief moved with them. The PDF bookmarks follow the new order, so a click still lands on the right tab.
Appendix – Ardsley Property Group v. Mercer Facility ServicesDocument · PDF1:45 PM
1:45 PM
The client decided to appeal yesterday. The notice goes in this week.
The docketing statement filled. Two blanks are yours.
Claude CoworkCoastline – notice of appeal We’re appealing the Coastline judgment. Prepare the notice of appeal and the civil docketing statement for the Fourteenth Court.Read 4 files, used DocketDrafterBoth drafted. The docketing statement is filled from the judgment and the trial court file: the case style, both counsel blocks with bar numbers, the court reporter, and the dates. Two decisions are yours, and I left those blank: whether a supersedeas bond is going up, and how much of the reporter’s record you want.
Notice of Appeal and Docketing Statement – CoastlineDocuments · PDF
The docketing statement, filled from the judgment and the trial court file. 4:10 PM
4:10 PM
An associate has been editing the reply all day. The partner wants one paragraph back the way he had it.
Two people editing one brief, and a redline whenever you want one.
Claude CoworkArdsley – revisions What has changed in the reply since this morning? Put the standards paragraph back the way I had it.Used DocketDrafterHere is a redline of every change since this morning. The standards paragraph is back to your version, and the rest of her work is untouched. Both versions are still here if you want the other one after all.
Reply Brief – revision historyDocument · DOCX8:35 PM
8:35 PM
The reply runs 7,940 words. Rule 9.4(i)(2)(B) allows 7,500.
Four hundred words over, at a quarter to nine.
Claude CoworkArdsley – length The reply is over the limit. Where can it come down without giving up an argument?Used DocketDrafterHere are the recommended cuts. Nothing proposed touches the issues. The count is 7,412 if you take all of them, and your table of contents and index of authorities will be updated alongside the certificate of compliance for the trimmed brief.
Reply Brief – trimmedDocument · DOCX
Your firm can be working this way next week.
No onboarding work, no manual setup.
Not texas appellate? Ask your own Claude or ChatGPT what DocketDrafter would do for your practice, or see the other practices we have written up.
Whitfield Appellate PLLC is an invented firm, and every party, matter and appeal on this page is invented. The authorities and the rules are real.