By Leisa Wintz, MS, Esq. · Founder, Legal Authority Lab · Florida Bar No. 64399
The short answer: I give my AI paralegal the client file and tell it what the hearing is. It hands back a hearing board, one screen with tiles for the facts, the timeline, the relief I’m asking for, the arguments I expect and my closing. I tap through it on my phone or iPad while I’m standing in front of the judge. Last night I built one for a Guardian ad Litem fee motion in a single evening.
You can click through an anonymized version right now: open the demo hearing board. Every name, date, amount and court in it has been changed. The structure is exactly what I used.
The structure is the idea. Every hearing comes down to four things: what you want the court to order, what happened and which document proves it, what the other side will say, and how you’ll say it all in two minutes. The board holds those four things on one screen, whether it’s a contempt motion, a motion to compel, a probate accounting dispute or an eviction, and whether you’re the one moving or the one responding. Mine happened to be a GAL fee hearing.
The problem with the way most of us prep
Most hearing prep lives in three places at once. There’s a legal pad with the argument, a folder of exhibits, and the case file on a laptop you can’t really open at counsel table. When the judge asks when the last payment came in, you’re flipping pages while the clock runs.
The facts are almost never the hard part. Finding the right fact fast, under pressure, in the order the judge asks for it, is the hard part.
What the AI paralegal actually does
It reads the file the way a good paralegal would, just faster. That means the appointment order, the invoices, the payment history, the correspondence, the docket and my own notes. Then it organizes what it found around the one question the hearing has to answer.
For the fee motion, that meant separating what was already owed from what would be needed going forward. It built a payment timeline showing every invoice and every outreach attempt. It pulled the exact paragraph of the appointment order that conditions the final report on payment. It wrote out the objections I should expect, my answer to each one, and a closing I could deliver in under two minutes.
Each of those became a tile. Tap a tile and the detail opens. Tap away and you’re back to the overview. Nothing scrolls off into a 40-page memo.
Why a board beats a memo
A memo is built to be read once, start to finish. A hearing doesn’t go in that order. The judge jumps to the money, then to the timeline, then asks whether the other side ever objected. A board lets you jump with them.
It also keeps the two numbers that matter from blending together. In a collection motion, the amount already earned and the amount needed to keep working are different asks, and they should be argued differently. The board puts them side by side so you say them in the right order.
What it doesn’t do
It doesn’t argue for you, and it doesn’t replace your judgment. Every fact on the board traces back to a document in the file, and I check the numbers against the ledger before I walk in. If the file is incomplete, the board is incomplete, and the system tells you what’s missing instead of filling the gap. Any legal authority it suggests gets verified by an attorney before it’s used. You are still the lawyer in the room.
It also isn’t magic on a messy file. The better your files are organized, the better the board. That’s why file structure is the first thing we set up when we install the system for a firm.
Behind this board: my GAL system
In the demo, the hearing board is the last step of a larger Guardian ad Litem workflow. Your practice will have its own version of these steps. This is mine. Every step starts from the same rule: the GAL is the court’s neutral for the child’s best interests, never either parent’s advocate.
- Intake. The system reads the order of appointment and the opening documents. It builds a case profile covering the parties, the children by initials, the scope I was appointed to address, any scope gaps to raise with the court, the allegations sorted by who made them, and an opening investigation checklist. It also drafts the GAL contract, the acceptance of appointment and the initial letter to the parties.
- Investigation tracker. A live log of who I’ve interviewed or tried to reach, which records I’ve requested and received, and what I’ve reviewed. Open gaps are ranked high, medium or low, and a readiness check tells me when the file can support a final report. If I haven’t done a home visit, it says so until I do one or note that I’m skipping it.
- Interviews. My notes, voice debriefs or transcripts become source summaries. Each summary is typed by source (parent, child, lay witness or professional) and separates what the person saw firsthand from what they heard. It also runs bias and child-centered checks.
- Chronology. A source-attributed timeline of the case history, with every entry labeled, pattern checks across the record, and a draft background and procedural history for the report.
- Report. Interim and final reports built on the firm’s templates: background, the investigation, observations, then findings and recommendations organized by the §61.13(3), Fla. Stat. best-interest factors. Findings and recommendations are kept strictly apart. I dictate my recommendations, and the system shows me what in the record supports each one and what’s still missing.
- Quality control. Before anything is filed, a nine-part review checks factual accuracy, child-initials and naming rules, source attribution, neutrality, scope, completeness and formal requirements. It also runs a cross-examination stress test and a blind adversarial verification pass.
- Motions and hearings. The GAL’s own filings in her neutral capacity: motions to compel GAL fees, motions for evaluations, proposed orders and collateral letters. When a motion goes to hearing, the system builds the board.
That’s why the board took one evening. The facts, the timeline and the payment history were already organized before I asked for it. In your firm, the steps upstream follow your practice: discovery and depositions in a civil case, inventories and accountings in probate, ledgers and notices in a collections matter. The board at the end works the same way.
What it looks like in your practice
The same approach works for any hearing on your calendar, whether you’re moving or responding. In family law, that’s a temporary relief hearing, a contempt motion, a relocation evidentiary hearing or a final hearing. Outside family law, it’s a motion to compel in a civil case, a summary judgment hearing, a dispute over a probate accounting, an eviction or collections hearing, or an injunction hearing. You point the system at the file, tell it the hearing type and the judge, and it builds the board, the timeline and the closing. It also builds the task list of what still has to happen before the hearing date. You own the system once it’s installed, and you don’t pay us a subscription.
Frequently asked questions
I don’t practice family law, and I’m not a GAL. Does this apply to me? Yes. The demo is a GAL fee motion, but the board is built around the hearing, not the practice area or the side you’re on. Any matter with a file, a hearing date and a judge who asks questions out of order is a fit.
Can I use the board in the courtroom? I do, on my phone or iPad, the same way you’d use your notes. Follow your judge’s rules on devices in the courtroom.
Does it work with my files? It works with the file system you already have, such as Dropbox, OneDrive or SharePoint. Setup includes organizing your folder structure so the system can find what it needs.
Does it cite case law? Only from your firm’s verified research library, and every citation is flagged for attorney verification before use.
How long does a board take? The one in the demo took me one evening, start to finish. A cleaner file goes faster.
See it, then talk to me
Click through the demo hearing board and picture your next hearing in it, whatever your practice area. If you want this built for your firm, book a call with me and I’ll show you how it works on one of your own cases.
Legal Authority Lab builds AI paralegal systems for law firms. AI built for law firms, powered by real lawyers. This article is general information for attorneys, not legal advice. The demo uses a fictional, anonymized case.
