Court Buddy

Helping you navigate BC family law when you can’t afford to be lost.

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Court Buddy: Navigate BC Family Law with Clarity

Inspiration

Family law is stressful, confusing, and often unaffordable. Many people in BC don’t qualify for legal aid but can’t afford a lawyer, leaving them alone with forms and court processes they don’t understand. I wanted to build something to help people in that gap so they can feel less alone, get organized, and take action during some of the hardest times in their lives.

What it does

Court Buddy is a web-based AI assistant that helps people in BC navigate family law by:

  • Guiding users to the forms they need for their specific family law situation
  • Auto-filling forms so they can print and file them correctly
  • Offering AI chat support in plain language to explain next steps and legal terms
  • Helping users track what to file and when

It’s meant for people who can’t afford a lawyer or who want to prepare before getting legal help, reducing stress and confusion in the process.

How we built it

I built Court Buddy using Bolt.new, which allowed me to:

  • Create interactive, AI-powered chat flows to guide users through BC family law processes
  • Use Bolt’s form-filling and document generation features to auto-populate forms
  • Provide plain-language explanations for legal terms with Bolt’s AI blocks
  • Launch a user-friendly, mobile-accessible website without coding a backend

Using Bolt helped me focus on clarity and user experience while learning the platform for the first time.

Challenges we ran into

During this hackathon, I had to fly to Winnipeg, where my daughter has been in the hospital recovering from brain damage for two weeks. Balancing the build while supporting her recovery was extremely challenging and meant I couldn’t add everything I had planned.

Technically, I faced challenges in:

  • Structuring the conversation flows effectively within Bolt
  • Prompting Bolt to generate a clean, unique, and uniform header for the chat experience, which I still couldn’t get to look the way I envisioned
  • Ensuring legal explanations were clear while remaining accurate
  • Learning the tool quickly under personal stress and limited time

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Created a working AI chat assistant that helps people navigate BC family law
  • Built a tool that auto-fills BC family law forms for easier filing
  • Designed clear, plain-language guidance for people in vulnerable situations
  • Completed and submitted the project while managing a family emergency

What we learned

  • No-code tools like Bolt can empower non-developers to build meaningful, practical tools

Court Buddy: Navigate BC Family Law with Clarity

Inspiration

Family law is stressful, confusing, and often unaffordable. Many people in BC don’t qualify for legal aid but can’t afford a lawyer, leaving them alone with forms and court processes they don’t understand. I wanted to build something to help people in that gap so they can feel less alone, get organized, and take action during some of the hardest times in their lives.

What it does

Court Buddy is a web-based AI assistant that helps people in BC navigate family law by:

  • Guiding users to the forms they need for their specific family law situation
  • Auto-filling forms so they can print and file them correctly
  • Offering AI chat support in plain language to explain next steps and legal terms
  • Helping users track what to file and when

It’s meant for people who can’t afford a lawyer or who want to prepare before getting legal help, reducing stress and confusion in the process.

How we built it

I built Court Buddy using Bolt.new, which allowed me to:

  • Create interactive, AI-powered chat flows to guide users through BC family law processes
  • Use Bolt’s form-filling and document generation features to auto-populate forms
  • Provide plain-language explanations for legal terms with Bolt’s AI blocks
  • Launch a user-friendly, mobile-accessible website without coding a backend

Using Bolt helped me focus on clarity and user experience while learning the platform for the first time.

Challenges we ran into

During this hackathon, I had to fly to Winnipeg, where my daughter has been in the hospital recovering from brain damage for two weeks. Balancing the build while supporting her recovery was extremely challenging and meant I couldn’t add everything I had planned.

Technically, I faced challenges in:

  • Structuring the conversation flows effectively within Bolt
  • Prompting Bolt to generate a clean, unique, and uniform header for the chat experience, which I still couldn’t get to look the way I envisioned
  • Ensuring legal explanations were clear while remaining accurate
  • Learning the tool quickly under personal stress and limited time

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Created a working AI chat assistant that helps people navigate BC family law
  • Built a tool that auto-fills BC family law forms for easier filing
  • Designed clear, plain-language guidance for people in vulnerable situations
  • Completed and submitted the project while managing a family emergency

What we learned

  • No-code tools like Bolt can empower non-developers to build meaningful, practical tools
  • Many people fall into the “too rich for legal aid, too poor for a lawyer” gap, and even small tools can help
  • Clear, simple explanations are crucial when designing legal tech
  • Progress matters, even if it isn’t perfect when life circumstances get hard

What's Next

I hope to create a donation section so that I can make a little bit of money, but keep it optional if people can afford it. I also need to work on the chat bot. It would be nice to incorporate virtual ai, and different language options.

Built With

  • bolt.new
  • chatgpt
  • entri
  • loom
  • netlify
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