Legal case timeline maker
Turn complex matters into clear, defensible chronologies. Timetoast helps you organise events, evidence, and participants so your team, clients, and decision-makers can follow what happened, and when, at a glance.
Keep case chronologies clear and defensible
Most case timelines live in long memos, email threads, or static documents:
- Key dates, filings, and communications are scattered across tools
- Different people keep their own versions of the chronology
- It’s slow to update when new evidence or testimony appears
The result: teams lose time reconciling facts instead of focusing on strategy.
A case timeline gives everyone the same picture:
- Shows what happened first, next, and last across the matter
- Makes it easier to connect events with documents and witnesses
- Gives you a single reference you can use in prep, negotiation, or court
With Timetoast, you maintain one chronology and view it in different ways depending on who’s in the room.
Capture events, evidence, and actors in one place
Use the grid view when you’re building or revising your chronology:
- Add filings, hearings, communications, and key facts in seconds
- Use custom fields for party, matter, source document, issue, and confidence
- Sort and filter to focus on an issue, or witness
The grid feels like a spreadsheet but stays directly connected to every timeline view.
Present a clear story in meetings or in court
Switch to a timeline view when you need to walk someone through the facts:
- A horizontal timeline is ideal for hearings and strategy sessions
- A vertical timeline works well for detailed review on smaller screens
You keep editing the same project, while Timetoast keeps grid and timeline views aligned.
Highlight parties, issues, and phases with color
Case timelines can get dense quickly. Timetoast helps you keep them readable:
- Filter by party or side to see who did what, when
- Filter by issue to focus on a specific claim or defence
- Color-code events by phase, issue, or event type so patterns stand out
You can change filters and colors depending on whether you’re preparing, negotiating, or presenting.
Built for law firms, in-house teams, and investigators
Use Timetoast for litigation, investigations, and internal reviews. It gives you enough structure to stay organised while still fitting the way your team works.
- Invite colleagues and external collaborators with clear view and edit rights
- A shared workspace so everyone works from the same chronology
- Keep timelines private, share them with a specific group, or create public views when appropriate
- Embed views for briefs, or secure portals
What a legal case timeline looks like in Timetoast
Here’s a simple structure you can use as a starting point. You can set this up yourself or start with a generic template and adapt it for your matter.
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Fields that reflect how you work
A typical case chronology project might include fields like:
- Event – the filing, communication, meeting, or fact
- Date and time – when the event occurred
- Party – claimant, defendant, witness, or third party
- Issue – which claim, defence, or question it relates to
- Source – document, exhibit, transcript, or note
- Reference – document ID, paragraph, or page
- Notes – key points, credibility, or next steps
You can rename or add fields to match your own case management or document IDs.
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Views for different audiences
You'll probably use different views for different audiences:
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Analysis view (grid)
All events with sources and notes. Used by the core team when shaping the case theory. -
Litigation view (horizontal timeline)
Key events and milestones for hearings, mediation, or trial prep. -
Client view (vertical timeline)
A simplified chronology filtered to what clients or stakeholders need to see.
You can switch between these views in a couple of clicks, without rebuilding the chronology each time.
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Analysis view (grid)
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How a typical matter might run
Across the life of a case you might:
- Log new events in the grid as documents, interviews, and hearings come in.
- Review the timeline before strategy meetings, mediations, or court dates.
- Share a filtered view with clients or co-counsel so everyone stays aligned.
The chronology stays current because you keep editing one project instead of maintaining multiple versions.
Who legal case timelines are for
Timetoast is flexible enough to support different roles around the same matter.
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Litigators and advocates
- Build and refine a chronology that supports your case theory
- Highlight key events and documents for hearings or trial
- Quickly adjust timelines as new facts emerge
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In-house counsel
- Create shared timelines for disputes, investigations, or projects
- Share high-level views with executives and internal stakeholders
- Keep external counsel aligned on the same chronology
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Investigators and case teams
- Track interview notes, documents, and findings along a timeline
- Filter by issue or party during reviews
- Export data for reports, briefs, or disclosure tools
Key benefits at a glance
With Timetoast for legal cases you can:
- Turn scattered case materials into a clear, defensible chronology
- Keep one organised project instead of multiple conflicting versions
- Show different levels of detail to teams, clients, and decision-makers
- Update timelines quickly instead of reworking slides or documents
- Reuse chronology structures across similar matters or portfolios
Start faster with flexible templates
You can create a case project from scratch or start with simple templates and adapt them for your practice.
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Popular options include:
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Classic timeline
Title, description, and categories – a simple structure you can shape into a case chronology. -
Blank project
Start with a clean slate and add only the fields and views you need.
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Classic timeline
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Each template comes with:
- Helpful default fields you can rename for your matters
- Sample items you can edit or remove
- The grid view and horizontal/vertical timeline views ready to use from day one
Discover Timetoast
See how Timetoast helps bring your projects to life with visual timelines.
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