Building a Matter Chronology with AI: One Source of Truth, Not Ten Spreadsheets

Every serious case ends up with a chronology. The question is when it appears and how many versions you have to reconcile.

In many firms, the pattern is familiar:

one chronology in a Word document for counsel;
another in a spreadsheet for the client;
a half-updated table in a witness statement; and
yet more dates scattered through attendance notes and emails.

AI can help you maintain a single, living matter chronology that everyone can trust – if you design the workflow properly.

This article looks at how to build that workflow for UK litigators and other dispute-focused teams.

1. Decide where your master chronology lives

The most important decision is not about AI at all. It is:

“Where does the official chronology live for this matter?”

Ideally, the answer is: inside your case management system, not in a free-floating spreadsheet.

Your master chronology should:

be accessible to everyone on the team;
support simple fields (date, time, event, source, document link, person responsible);
allow sorting and filtering by issue.

AI then becomes a way to feed and query this record, not a parallel system.

2. Use AI to pull events out of the mess

Modern models are very good at scanning text for events. Useful inputs include:

email threads;
attendance notes;
orders and pleadings;
key documents such as contracts and board minutes.

For each input, you might ask the tool to:

list dates and events in a simple table;
identify who did what and when;
flag potential disputes of fact (“Client says X; letter from other side says Y”).

A sensible pattern is:

AI proposes a list of events with dates and short descriptions.
A fee-earner checks for accuracy and relevance.
Approved entries are added to the master chronology with links back to source documents.

3. Keep the chronology updated as work progresses

Chronologies often decay because nobody owns them.

To avoid that:

assign an owner per matter (often the associate or senior paralegal);
build “update chronology” into standard workflows:
- after key hearings;
- after major letters or conferences;
- when new evidence emerges.

AI can help by:

suggesting new entries after important emails or documents are added;
highlighting potential inconsistencies with existing entries;
generating short “since last time” updates for clients and counsel.

But someone must still decide what belongs in the official record.

4. Use the chronology as a hub, not an archive

A well-maintained chronology is not just a list of dates. It is a control panel for the case.

Once it is in good shape, you can:

jump from chronology entries to underlying documents in one click;
generate draft narratives for pleadings and witness statements;
identify gaps in the story (“We do not have a document explaining this decision.”);
see at a glance which events need follow-up tasks.

AI can generate:

draft “case background” sections based on the chronology;
timelines grouped by issue (liability, causation, quantum);
alternative views for different audiences (client summaries vs counsel briefs).

Again, outputs must be checked – but the starting point is much stronger.

5. Guardrails: accuracy, privilege and supervision

Because chronologies often underpin submissions to the court:

ensure that key events are verified against original sources;
record who last updated each entry and why;
avoid including privileged analysis or strategy in the same table as neutral facts.

AI-assisted entries should be:

clearly flagged as such until reviewed; and
supported by links to the documents or notes they came from.

Supervisors can then spot-check important periods (for example, the days leading up to a critical decision) to ensure the record is sound.

6. Avoiding multiple competing versions

Multiple chronologies arise when:

templates are emailed around rather than shared from a central system;
external counsel maintain their own versions;
different teams (for example, regulatory and civil) track events separately.

To manage this:

treat the master chronology as the single source of factual truth;
export views from it for specific purposes (for example, a cut-down chronology for counsel, or a client-friendly summary);
store exported versions back against the matter with clear dates and labels (“Chronology for counsel conference – 14 March draft”).

AI can help generate these derivatives quickly, but they should always point back to the same underlying dataset.

Where OrdoLux fits

OrdoLux is being built around the idea that:

each matter should have a central, structured chronology;
emails, documents and notes feed that chronology automatically where possible; and
AI features sit on top, helping to extract events, surface inconsistencies and generate narratives.

Because everything lives inside the matter file:

you have an audit trail of who added which entries and when;
external outputs (for clients, counsel and the court) can be traced back to sources;
time spent maintaining and exploiting the chronology can be captured for billing.

The goal is fewer last-minute spreadsheet marathons and more continuous, reliable case understanding.

This article is general information for practitioners — not legal advice.

Looking for legal case management software?

OrdoLux is legal case management software for UK solicitors, designed to make matter management, documents, time recording and AI assistance feel like one joined-up system. Learn more on the OrdoLux website.