Product
Small Claims Case Brief
For the pro-se plaintiff with a small-claims hearing in a few weeks who has a shoebox of texts, invoices, and timeline notes and no idea how to turn them into something a judge can follow in ten minutes. Paste what happened, list the evidence you already have, and get one coherent court-day pack: a chronological one-page statement of facts cross-referenced to exhibit numbers, a numbered exhibit index with a one-line relevance explanation per item, and a 90-second spoken opening you can actually read aloud at the podium with the ask stated upfront. The tool organizes facts you already have, it does not analyze your case or predict outcomes, and it hard-refuses anything that is not a small-claims matter (criminal, divorce, custody, immigration, bankruptcy, large personal injury, class action), routing you to Legal Services Corporation and the state bar Lawyer Referral Service.
About this tool
What does small claims case brief do?
For the pro-se plaintiff with a small-claims hearing in a few weeks who has a shoebox of texts, invoices, and timeline notes and no idea how to turn them into something a judge can follow in ten minutes. Paste what happened, list the evidence you already have, and get one coherent court-day pack: a chronological one-page statement of facts cross-referenced to exhibit numbers, a numbered exhibit index with a one-line relevance explanation per item, and a 90-second spoken opening you can actually read aloud at the podium with the ask stated upfront. The tool organizes facts you already have, it does not analyze your case or predict outcomes, and it hard-refuses anything that is not a small-claims matter (criminal, divorce, custody, immigration, bankruptcy, large personal injury, class action), routing you to Legal Services Corporation and the state bar Lawyer Referral Service.
What does Small Claims Case Brief do?
You paste what happened in your own words, pick the case type (contract, property damage, unpaid wages, security deposit, consumer, neighbor, or other), list the dollar amount you are asking for, and name the evidence you already have (texts, invoices, photos, lease pages, receipts, emails). One structured pass on produde returns a court-day prep pack: a chronological one-page statement of facts that cross-references each paragraph to a numbered exhibit, a numbered exhibit index with a one-line relevance explanation for every item on your list, and a 90-second spoken opening you can actually read aloud at the podium, written to open with the case type and the exact ask so the judge knows in the first sentence what you want. It is built for the ten minutes you have in front of the judge, not the two hours you wish you had to prepare.
Who is this for?
The pro-se plaintiff who has already filed a small-claims claim and has a hearing on the calendar in the next few weeks. The tenant who filed over a withheld security deposit after the lease ended. The freelancer who filed over an unpaid invoice. The driver who filed after a fender-bender the other driver's insurer refused to cover. The consumer who filed over a defective appliance the retailer refused to refund. The neighbor who filed over a repeat nuisance after the warning letter went ignored. The tool is for someone who has a shoebox of facts and no idea how to turn them into something a judge can follow in ten minutes. It is not for defendants, not for appeals, and not for matters that are not small-claims (criminal, divorce, custody, immigration, bankruptcy, large personal injury, class action), which the tool hard-refuses and routes to Legal Services Corporation and the state bar Lawyer Referral Service.
Is this legal advice?
No. Small Claims Case Brief on produde is a drafting and organization aid, not a lawyer. The system prompt refuses to analyze the merits of your case, refuses to predict whether you will win, refuses to recommend a legal strategy, and refuses to interpret statutes or case law. It only organizes the facts you already supplied into the three deliverables a small-claims judge expects to see (statement of facts, exhibit index, spoken opening). For legal advice, consult a lawyer; the tool routes you to Legal Services Corporation (for income-qualifying free civil help) and to your state bar's Lawyer Referral Service in the refusal path for anything outside its scope.
Will it predict whether I will win my case?
No. The tool never predicts outcomes. It will not tell you your case is strong, it will not tell you your case is weak, it will not estimate odds, it will not recommend whether to settle, and it will not tell you what the judge is likely to decide. Those are legal judgments a lawyer makes after reviewing the full record, and they are explicitly out of scope. What the tool does is organize what you already have so the judge can scan it quickly: the facts in a chronology, the exhibits in a numbered index with one-line relevance, and the opening in ninety seconds of plain language. Everything else is up to you and the judge.
How is this different from asking ChatGPT to write my case brief?
A freeform ChatGPT prompt will happily invent an exhibit you did not list, cite a statute that may or may not exist, declare the defendant breached the contract or acted in bad faith (both of which are legal conclusions a judge decides, not something a plaintiff asserts in a statement of facts), and skip the small-claims genre entirely. Small Claims Case Brief on produde runs one structured pass with four hard guardrails. The statement of facts strips the full emotional lexicon (angry, outraged, screwed, shady, cheated, insulting, nasty, any adjective of moral judgment on the defendant) and the full legal-conclusion lexicon (breached the contract, committed fraud, acted in bad faith, is liable, violated the law) and rewrites each into a dated factual event the plaintiff can point to on the record; on the Deep tier every rewrite is receipted in a safety_notes list so you can see exactly which phrases the tool changed and why. The exhibit index only lists items you actually named on the form; nothing is invented. The opening is tuned to your case type so a contract dispute opens with the contract date and the specific obligation, property damage opens with the damage date and the amount paid or quoted to repair, unpaid wages opens with the agreed rate and the unpaid period, and so on. And a facts_not_supplied list receipts every genre-expected fact you did not provide (defendant's response, witness names, prior demand letter) so nothing is filled in silently.
What do I get back from one run?
Three documents ready to print for the hearing. One, a chronological one-page statement of facts in judge-neutral prose, split into short dated sentences where each paragraph cross-references an exhibit number from your list (so the judge can follow 'see Exhibit 3' straight to the thing on paper). Two, a numbered exhibit index listing every piece of evidence you named, each with a one-line relevance explanation written in plain language (what this is, what it proves). Three, a 90-second spoken opening written for the plaintiff to read aloud at the podium: opens with 'Your Honor, this is a {case_type} dispute. I am asking for ${amount_claimed}.' then three to five short factual sentences each referencing an exhibit, then the exact relief amount and any filing-fee recovery as the close. On the Deep tier you also get one alternate opening in a shorter and warmer register (same facts, slightly more human tone, still read-aloud), a safety_notes list receipting every emotional-language and legal-conclusion rewrite, and a facts_not_supplied list naming every genre-expected fact you did not provide so you can decide whether to re-run with it filled in. The output is plain text, designed to be printed, three-hole-punched, and walked into the courtroom.
Which tier should I pick, Quick or Deep?
Quick draft (15 tokens on Gemini Flash Lite) strips the top emotional phrases and top legal-conclusion phrases, writes a judge-neutral opening on the universal case-type template, and gives you the one-page statement of facts and the numbered exhibit index clean. Pick Quick when the hearing is tomorrow and you need something defensible to walk in with, or when you want a baseline draft to iterate on. Deep brief (30 tokens on Gemini Flash) runs the full defensive stack: full emotional lexicon strip and full legal-conclusion lexicon strip with every rewrite receipted in safety_notes, an opening tuned to your specific case type (contract opens with the contract date and the specific obligation, property damage with the damage event date and amount, unpaid wages with the agreed rate and the dates of the unpaid period, security deposit with the lease end date and the withholding, consumer with the purchase date and the defect, neighbor with the incident date), one alternate opening in a warmer register, and the full facts_not_supplied receipt. Pick Deep for a hearing you intend to actually walk into prepared, a complicated chronology, or a dispute where you want a second opening in reserve.
Does this file my small-claims claim for me?
No. The tool assumes you have already filed the claim with your local small-claims court and have a hearing date on the calendar. It does not file anything with the court, it does not serve the defendant, it does not generate a complaint or a summons, and it does not interact with the court's e-filing system. It prepares the documents you bring to the hearing: the statement of facts, the numbered exhibit index, and the spoken opening. Filing, service of process, and the actual appearance are on you.
Does it work for all US states?
The output is jurisdiction-neutral. The statement of facts, numbered exhibit index, and 90-second spoken opening do not reference state-specific statutes, state-specific small-claims caps, or state-specific procedural rules, because those vary by state and are legal questions outside the tool's scope. If your local court requires lettered exhibits (A, B, C) instead of numbered exhibits (1, 2, 3), you can adjust the labels when you print; the exhibit index structure stays the same. The tool also does not verify that your dollar amount is within your state's small-claims cap; you should confirm that against your state's rules before the hearing.
Will this handle criminal, divorce, custody, or injury cases?
No. The tool hard-refuses anything that is not a small-claims matter. Criminal, divorce, custody, immigration, bankruptcy, large personal injury, and class action are explicitly out of scope and trigger a refusal that routes you to Legal Services Corporation (for income-qualifying free civil help) and your state bar's Lawyer Referral Service. Those matters involve rules, timelines, and consequences a drafting tool cannot responsibly touch; they require a lawyer. The refusal is the only output in those cases, and the token cost is refunded automatically.
How much does it cost, and do I need a subscription?
There is no subscription. You spend produde tokens per run: 15 tokens for a Quick draft and 30 tokens for a Deep brief. Tokens are a prepaid platform credit you buy once and spend across any produde tool, so a plaintiff pays per hearing instead of a monthly SaaS bill during the long stretches of life when nothing is in court. If a run fails at any stage (network error, model refusal, safety guard triggered), the full token cost is refunded to your wallet automatically, so a partial pipeline error never costs you tokens on a brief you did not receive.
What does it cost?
From 15 tokens. Pick a tier on the form above. Produde tokens are a prepaid platform credit; buy them once and spend on any tool.
Do I pay if a run doesn't complete?
No. You only pay for results. If a run can't finish, its full token cost stays in your wallet automatically.
Is my data stored?
Your input and the run output are saved to your account so you can browse history. They are not sold, shared with advertisers, or used to train shared models. See privacy for details.