Docket

AI-Powered Legal Case Management for Law Students

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Inspiration

Law students often manage case notes, evidence, timelines, and revision materials across multiple documents and applications. This fragmented workflow makes studying inefficient and time-consuming. We wanted to create a single platform that combines legal case management with AI-assisted study tools, helping students stay organized while preparing for exams.

What it does

Docket is an AI-powered legal case management and study platform designed for law students.

Key features include:

  • 📁 Create and manage legal cases
  • 🏷️ Organize cases using tags
  • 📅 Build chronological case timelines
  • 📎 Upload and manage exhibits including images, PDFs, videos, and documents
  • 🤖 Generate AI-powered study briefs
  • 🧠 Automatically create revision flashcards
  • 📄 Export comprehensive revision sheets as PDF
  • 📊 Visualize relationships between cases through an interactive graph
  • 🔔 Track deadlines, upcoming exams, and study progress
  • 🌙 Support both Light and Dark themes
  • 📱 Responsive interface across desktop and mobile devices

How we built it

Docket was built using a modern full-stack JavaScript architecture.

Frontend

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Vite

Backend

  • Node.js
  • Express.js

Database

  • MongoDB Atlas

AI & Additional Technologies

  • AI API for study brief generation
  • PDF generation
  • Interactive graph visualization
  • File upload and evidence management

Deployment

  • Frontend deployed on Vercel
  • Backend deployed on Render
  • Database hosted on MongoDB Atlas

Challenges we ran into

Throughout development, we encountered several technical challenges, including:

  • Designing a scalable case management workflow
  • Integrating AI-generated study briefs
  • Deploying the frontend and backend separately
  • Configuring MongoDB Atlas for production
  • Handling file uploads across local and deployed environments
  • Managing environment variables during deployment
  • Ensuring responsive design across devices
  • Optimizing user experience while keeping the interface simple

Each challenge helped improve the overall quality and reliability of the project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud that Docket evolved from an idea into a fully deployed web application.

Some highlights include:

  • ✅ Successfully deploying a complete full-stack application
  • ✅ Building an end-to-end legal case management workflow
  • ✅ Integrating AI-assisted study tools
  • ✅ Implementing evidence management with multiple file types
  • ✅ Generating structured revision PDFs
  • ✅ Creating interactive flashcards
  • ✅ Visualizing relationships between legal cases
  • ✅ Delivering a responsive and intuitive user experience

What we learned

Building Docket strengthened our understanding of:

  • Full-stack application development
  • REST API design
  • MongoDB data modeling
  • Cloud deployment using Vercel and Render
  • Production environment configuration
  • AI integration into real-world applications
  • File management and uploads
  • User experience and accessibility considerations
  • Planning scalable software architecture

Most importantly, we learned how to transform a real-world problem into a functional product within the limited timeframe of a hackathon.

What's next for Docket

We believe Docket has significant potential beyond the hackathon.

Our future roadmap includes:

  • 🔐 Google Sign-In and authentication improvements
  • 🌐 Public and private case libraries
  • 🤝 Collaborative case sharing
  • ⚖️ Advanced AI-powered legal research assistance
  • 📈 Enhanced analytics and study insights
  • ☁️ Cloud-based evidence storage
  • 📚 Expanded legal study resources
  • 🚀 Improved scalability for larger user communities

Our long-term vision is to make Docket a comprehensive digital workspace for legal education and case management.

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