From a pile of documents to a case a court can read.

1. To keep it concrete, we'll follow one example throughout. Say you're owed money for work you did, and the other side has gone quiet. You have the paperwork somewhere: the agreement, the invoices, the emails that stopped being answered. But you have no clear sense of what to do with it.

2. Stage 1 · Start with your documents.

   You upload what you have: the agreement, the invoices, the letters and emails, whatever bears on the dispute. Portia works only from these. Everything it does next is built on your actual documents, not on assumptions about your case.

   In our example: you upload the signed quote, the three unpaid invoices, and the email thread that went quiet in March.

3. Stage 2 · It organises your evidence.

   Portia turns that pile into something you can use. It reads your documents and builds a chronology, a clear timeline of what happened and when, alongside an indexed set of exhibits, so every document has a reference and a place. A folder of files becomes an ordered picture of events.

   In our example: the quote, invoices and emails become a dated sequence, from the day the work was agreed to the day the replies stopped, each document indexed and ready to cite.

4. Stage 3 · It finds the legal foundation.

   Portia identifies the recognised cause of action your situation may rest on, the legal basis a court would recognise, and the elements each one requires: the specific points that basis obliges you to establish. This is the structure the whole case hangs on, and it is exactly what most people representing themselves never see laid out.

   In our example: the facts point to a breach of contract, and Portia sets out what that requires you to show: that there was a contract, what it obliged each side to do, that you did your part, and that the other side did not.

5. Stage 4 · It shows what your evidence supports.

   Now Portia checks your evidence against that structure, element by element. For each point you need to establish, it shows which of your documents support it, and where the evidence is thin or missing, before you commit to anything. You see the strong parts of your case and the gaps honestly, while there is still time to do something about them.

   In our example: the agreement and invoices clearly support that work was agreed and billed. Proof that it was completed to the agreed standard is thinner, and Portia flags it, so you gather that now rather than discover the gap later.

6. Stage 5 · You draft on that foundation.

   Only now does anything get drafted, and only what your evidence supports. Portia helps you prepare structured documents built around the legal framework it has mapped, each point tied back to the evidence behind it. That covers a letter before action to open the matter, statements of case such as particulars of claim or a defence, and witness statements. Each one is grounded in your documents rather than written from a blank page.

   In our example: you begin with a letter before action setting out the debt, the basis for it and the evidence, structured the way the other side, and later a court, would expect to read it.

7. And it doesn't run only once

   A dispute rarely stands still. As new documents arrive and things develop, Portia re-analyses your case against them, updating the chronology, the gaps and the overall picture as you go. The structure stays current, not frozen at the moment you started.

The bundle

What you have at the end.

Not a folder of files and a rough idea of what you want to say, but a case structured the way the system expects to receive it:

• structured documents (a letter before action, statements of case, witness statements), each grounded in your evidence;
• a chronology of events, dated and ordered;
• an indexed bundle of exhibits, every document referenced and ready to cite;
• a clear view of where your case is strong and where it still needs work;
• a running log of your matter, and of the time you have spent on it.