CaseDeck help center

Sign in at your firm's CaseDeck address, e.g. vijaimathews.casedeck.cloud.

1. Enter your email and password.
2. Click the eye icon inside the password field to show/hide what you've typed.
3. Click Sign in.

If your account requires two-factor authentication (2FA) and you haven't set it up yet, you'll be walked through it automatically the first time you sign in — scan the QR code with an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, etc.), or enter the text key shown below it manually, then enter the 6-digit code it generates to finish setup and sign in.

On every later sign-in, after your password you'll be asked for a fresh 6-digit code from your authenticator app.

Passkeys (Face ID / fingerprint): after you are signed in, add a passkey for this device — lawyers tap the fingerprint icon in the top navigation; admins use Manage → Passkeys. Next time you can tap Sign in with Face ID / fingerprint instead of entering a password (and you will not be asked for a 2FA code). Password sign-in remains available on any device.

Forgot your password? Click Forgot password? next to the password field. Enter your email and, if it matches an account, you'll get a reset link by email (valid for 1 hour, usable once).

Automatic sign-out: if you're inactive for 1 hour, you'll see a warning with a countdown in the last 60 seconds. Click Stay signed in to continue, or you'll be signed out automatically.

Changing your password: change your own password at any time, no admin needed. Lawyers: click the key icon in the top navigation, next to sign out. Admins: it's under the Manage menu instead. You'll be asked for your current password plus the new one twice.

Lawyer — everything related to clients, cases, documents, hearings, verdicts, payments, sharing case summaries, and closing/reopening cases.

Admin — everything a Lawyer can do, plus user management and the firm-wide audit trail.

Your role is shown next to your name in the top-right of the app.

The bell icon in the top navigation shows what needs your attention, without needing to visit the dashboard first:

• Lawyers see hearings coming up in the next 7 days on cases assigned to them, plus limitation deadlines (expired or within 30 days) on their own unfiled cases.
• Admins additionally see hearings firm-wide, limitation deadlines firm-wide, cases with an outstanding payment balance, and cases with no lawyer assigned yet.

Click any item to jump straight to that case. A red badge on the bell shows how many items are waiting.

Notifications on your device — at the bottom of the bell dropdown, click "Enable notifications on this device" to get hearing reminders as a push notification even when CaseDeck isn't open. This is per device/browser, not per account, so enable it on each device you want alerted, and click the same control again to turn it off.

The search icon in the top navigation searches across your whole firm at once — case title, case number, court case number, CNR number, opposing party, client name, document filenames/types, and reference filenames/titles/types — not just the current page. Searching "affidavit" finds every document tagged that type, even if the filename itself doesn't say so. Type at least 2 characters and results appear as you type, grouped by what they are; click any result to jump straight there.

For PDF documents with a real text layer (not a scanned image), search also looks inside the document body — a party's name or clause written only inside the PDF is still findable, even if it's not in the filename or tag. This happens automatically on upload; nothing to turn on. Scanned/image-only PDFs aren't searchable this way yet — filename and type only.

Your landing page after login shows:

• Total / active / closed case counts, total outstanding balance across all open cases, and (if any) an overdue balance — the portion already past its payment due date.
• Limitation alerts — a count of open, unfiled cases whose limitation deadline has passed or falls within the next 30 days. See the Cases section below.
• Upcoming hearings in the next 30 days, with a link straight to each case.
• Recently updated cases — favourited cases always show first here, marked with a star, ahead of everything else regardless of when they were last touched.

Favourites: click the star next to any case's title — on the case page itself, or right in the Cases list — to flag it as a favourite. Favourited cases always show first, both in the dashboard's Recently updated cases list and in the main Cases list itself (any search/filter/sort you've applied still narrows the list — favourites just float to the top of whatever matches). Click the star again to un-favourite. Purely a personal organizing tool — it doesn't change the case itself or appear on the audit trail.

Finding a case: the Cases list supports free-text search across case title, your internal case number, the court's case number, CNR number, opposing party, and client name, plus filtering by status (Open / Reopened / Closed) and case type. Filters combine — apply a search term and a type filter together, then Clear to reset. The list shows 10 cases per page by default; change it to 25 or 50 at the bottom (your filters carry over between pages).

Bulk actions (admin only): check the box next to one or more cases, or the header checkbox to select every case on the current page, then reassign the whole selection to another lawyer or close it in one action. Bulk close only closes cases that already have a final verdict recorded and no outstanding balance — the rest are skipped, with the reason shown, rather than force-closed.

Creating a case manually: Cases → New case — fill in title, case type, court, court case number, CNR number (eCourts' Case Number Record, optional — paste it with or without spaces/hyphens, it's normalized automatically), opposing party and opposing counsel (optional — as you type the opposing party's name, CaseDeck checks it against your clients and every other case's opposing party and warns on a match, a lightweight conflict-of-interest check), filing date, assigned lawyer (optional), agreed fee (INR) with an optional payment due date, and a client — pick an existing one or enter a new client's details inline. If a due date is set and the balance is still unpaid once it passes, the case is flagged Overdue on the case list and its detail page.

Case type and Court both work the same way: type a value directly, or start typing to see suggestions from every case type or court your firm has used before — there's no fixed list to choose from either field. Type one that's never been used before and it's saved on the case as-is, then shows up as a suggestion for every case after that too.

Limitation deadlines: set a Limitation deadline on a case (alongside filing date) to track the Limitation Act, 1963 filing deadline. It only matters while Filing date is unset — once a case is marked filed, the deadline's been met. While unfiled: past the deadline shows a red "Limitation expired" badge and a red warning banner on the case detail page (the cause of action may now be time-barred); within 30 days shows an amber "Limitation due soon" badge and banner instead. Both the assigned lawyer and every admin see these in the notification bell. Court holidays extend the deadline automatically, per Limitation Act s.4, once your firm's holiday calendar is set up (Manage → Court Holidays) — the case banner then shows both the adjusted and original date.

Appeal-limitation deadlines: once a case has a final verdict recorded (see Verdicts, below), the case detail page nudges you to set an Appeal limitation deadline (edit form) if one isn't set yet — this only shows for verdicts from the last 120 days, so it doesn't resurface for old closed matters. Once set, it behaves like the Limitation deadline above (expired/due-soon banners, holiday-aware extension, notification bell alerts) except it isn't tied to case status, since a case is often already Closed by the time its appeal window matters. Set an Appeal filed date once an appeal is actually filed to clear the alert.

Creating a case from a document (AI-assisted): Cases → New case → From a document lets you upload a PDF and have the case title, type, court, court case number, filing date, and client name/email/phone/address extracted automatically. If the extracted client name matches someone already in your client list, the form switches to that existing client instead of creating a duplicate — you can still pick "New" if it matched the wrong person. Always review the extracted values before saving, especially dates and case numbers — AI extraction can be wrong on unusual document formats. If a PDF has little or no selectable text (a scan with no text layer), you'll need to fill the form in manually. The uploaded PDF is automatically attached to the case once you save.

On the case detail page you'll find:

• Documents — sits directly under Overview, before Hearings and Tasks, with two tabs. Uploaded is files you add to the case; Generated is the latest docket, combined case PDF, and GST invoices. Long lists on either tab show the first 3 with Show more for the rest. Dragging an uploaded file to reorder temporarily unfolds the full list so every row is a drop target. Upload a single file or an entire folder at once; optionally tag each upload with a document type (Vakalatnama, Petition, Affidavit, Evidence, Order, Judgment, Notice, Agreement, Correspondence, Other) — shown as a badge and searchable, so a large case stays scannable. Mark a file as digital evidence. Every upload is hashed (SHA-256) so you can later prove a file hasn't been altered. Click a file's name to rename it — the new name is what shows up everywhere, including the Export as PDF index below.
• References — a lighter attachment type: an uploaded file, a web link, or a free-text note, for supporting material that isn't a formal case document. Uploaded reference files can be tagged with a document type too.
• Hearings — add a hearing date, purpose, notes, outcome, and optionally the next hearing date. The assigned lawyer automatically gets an email reminder 24–48 hours before each hearing (or every admin, if the case has no assigned lawyer yet) — no need to set anything up.
• Tasks — a lightweight checklist for procedural steps that don't need a hearing date (file a written statement, serve notice, and so on). Add a task with an optional due date, check it off when done, or delete it. An overdue task is flagged red; one due within 3 days is flagged amber.
• Verdicts — record interim orders as they happen (stay orders, adjournments, review orders) and a final verdict once the case concludes. A case can have any number of interim verdicts but only one final verdict; a final verdict is required before the case can be closed. Each entry can be edited or deleted later.
• Payments — record payments received; the case shows agreed fee, total paid, and remaining balance automatically, plus the payment due date if one was set — flagged Overdue instead of the usual "Balance due" once that date has passed. Click the receipt icon next to a payment to generate a GST invoice for it — see below.
• Share — email a professionally formatted PDF case summary, with your firm's seal/branding, directly to a client with an optional message.
• eCourts sync — shown once the case has a CNR number and your firm's eCourts India API key is configured. Click "Refresh from eCourts" to pull the case's current status, next/last hearing date, court name, and judge(s) from the eCourts India API (a third-party service, not the official government eCourts portal). Manual and on-demand only — never automatic — since each refresh is billed against your eCourts account.
• Close case / Reopen case — one click.

Export as PDF: click Export as PDF, just above the Documents list, to open a complete case dossier in a new tab — an overview (case details, client, hearings, tasks, verdict), then every document and reference file merged in, with an index listing each one's starting page. Every page of the finished PDF is numbered (“Page N of Total”) across the whole document, not per-file, so you can cite an exact page the way a court paper book expects. Generated fresh every time you click it, then saved as the case's latest Combined case PDF under Documents → Generated. Check one or more documents in the list first to narrow it down — the button switches to Export selected as PDF and only those documents go in (reference files/links/notes and the overview stay included either way); leave nothing checked to export everything, as before. The Newest first / Oldest first sort control next to the checkboxes changes both the on-screen order and the order documents appear in the exported PDF. Drag a document by the handle on its left to arrange them by hand instead — this switches the sort control to Custom order and is saved automatically, so the order stays put next time anyone opens the case (and carries through to the exported PDF too). Checking one or more documents also reveals a Delete selected button, for removing several documents at once instead of one at a time — it asks you to confirm the count first, since it can't be undone.

Exporting a case as a ZIP: click Export as ZIP at the top of a case to download everything in one file — a case summary PDF (the same formatted summary used for sharing), every uploaded document, every file attached as a reference, and a text file listing any link/note references. Useful for handing a complete case file to co-counsel, a client, or for your own offline records. Available to any signed-in user, not just admins.

GST invoices: click the receipt icon next to any payment to generate a GST invoice for it. Requires your firm's GSTIN to be set first (Manage → Settings). The form pre-fills a SAC code (9982), an 18% tax rate, and lets you mark reverse charge (common when billing a registered business — check this if the client has a GSTIN on file) and whether the client is in the same state (CGST+SGST vs. IGST). This is a record-keeping tool, not tax advice — confirm the SAC code, tax rate, and reverse-charge treatment with your accountant before filing. Once generated, an invoice gets a permanent sequential number (e.g. INV-2026-27-0001) and can't be edited, re-generated, or deleted — the payment it's attached to becomes locked too. Click the invoice number anytime to re-download the same PDF.

Docket: the Docket card on a case page generates a formatted court docket cover sheet for filing — court, case number, parties, appearance, and your firm's letterhead at the bottom. Requires a docket letterhead to be set first (Admin → Settings); asking for that fails with a clear message if it isn't set yet. Choose whether your client is the Petitioner, Appellant, or Respondent for this filing before clicking Create Docket — the case number line pre-fills from the court filing number on record if one is set, or stays blank for filling in by hand at the registry otherwise. The latest docket is saved under Documents → Generated; generating again replaces the previous copy.

Generated documents: the Documents section sits directly under Overview, with an Uploaded tab for case files and a Generated tab for the latest Docket and Combined case PDF, plus every GST invoice. Both tabs fold long lists to the first 3 items, with Show more for the rest. View any item in a new tab. Dockets and combined PDFs are encrypted at rest, keep only the latest copy of each type, and can be deleted and generated again. GST invoices remain view-only because they are immutable compliance records. The Case status card sits last in the sidebar, after Activity.

Ask this case: shown once AI features are on (Admin → Settings). Type a plain-English question about the case and get an answer grounded only in that case's own documents and hearing/verdict history, with citations back to the source page or date. Not open-ended legal research — if it isn't in the file, it says so rather than guessing.

Suggest argument points: same AI-features gate. Add optional notes (your theory), tick up to eight PDFs from the firm's Law library (Admin → Law library), then generate possible argument points for the side your firm represents. After the first pass you can refine without starting over, and save the points you want onto the case workspace as a note. Claude may cite case law only from the PDFs you ticked or from this case's own documents — invented citations are forbidden. Statute names suggested as research leads still need a current-wording check.

Deleting a case (admin only): admins can permanently delete a case from the Case status panel at the bottom of the case detail sidebar. This removes the case, every uploaded document, reference file, generated PDF, and all hearings/payments attached to it — it cannot be undone, so a confirmation step shows exactly what will be removed before it happens. The fact that the case was deleted, and everything that happened to it beforehand, stays in the audit trail even after the case itself is gone. A case with any GST invoice issued on it can't be deleted at all.

Deleting a lawyer with active cases: if an admin deletes a lawyer who still has open/reopened cases assigned to them, the app requires transferring those cases to another active user first — cases are never silently orphaned.

Click the eye icon next to any PDF document to open it in the in-app reader instead of downloading it.

Highlighting: select any text in the document the way you'd select text on any page, then click Highlight in the popup that appears — optionally add a note first. Click an existing highlight (the yellow-tinted text) any time to reopen it, add or read its note, or delete it.

Adding a highlight to the workspace: click Add to workspace in a highlight's popup to pin that passage onto the case's Workspace board — pulling the exact lines that matter from a plaint, a written statement, and an order side by side while building an argument. Once pinned, the popup shows an Open workspace link instead, so you can jump straight to the board from the document you're reading.

The workspace board: reached from Workspace on a case page, or from any pinned highlight. Drag cards anywhere to arrange them while you work. Each card shows the quoted passage plus its source document and page; click the link icon on a card to jump straight back to exactly where it came from in the original PDF, or the trash icon to remove it from the board (this only unpins it — the highlight itself, and the document it's on, are untouched).

Highlighting only works on PDFs with real, selectable text. A scanned document (a PDF that's really just a photo or scan of a page, with no text layer underneath) can be viewed and downloaded like any other document, but can't be highlighted.

Notes on the board: click Add note on the workspace board to write your own free-text card — for a comment or reminder that isn't a quote from a document. Unlike a highlight card, a note stays editable after you create it (click the pencil icon on it any time to change it), and it's shown in a different color so the two are never confused on a crowded board.

Cases → Translate a document (a button next to "New case" on the Cases list) is a standalone tool, not tied to any specific case: upload a Malayalam legal PDF and get an English translation from Claude. It works on both text-based PDFs and scanned/image-only ones — the whole page is sent to Claude directly, so it reads the document the way a person would, not just whatever text layer happens to be embedded.

Once translated, you can copy the text, or download it as a .txt file, a PDF, or a Word document (.docx) — the PDF and Word versions both carry the source filename and a translation disclaimer. As with the AI-assisted case intake, this is best-effort — always have a fluent reader verify anything before it's used for filing or other legal purposes, especially on lower-quality scans or unusual handwriting.

Your firm has a monthly translation limit — the tool shows how many documents you have left (e.g. "2 of 3 documents remaining this month"), resetting on the 1st of each month. Once it's reached, the Translate button is disabled with an explanation — contact CaseDeck support if you need it raised.

Every translation you run is recorded in the firm's audit log, same as other significant actions.

Lists everyone your firm represents, searchable by name, email, or phone. Add a client directly here, or inline while creating a case. Each client shows their linked cases. Like Cases, the list is paginated — 10 per page by default, adjustable to 25 or 50 at the bottom.

Editing a client: click the pencil icon to update name, email, phone, address, notes, or GSTIN. Only needed if you plan to generate GST invoices for that client — leave blank for individual clients who aren't registered businesses.

Deleting a client (admin only): permanently removes a client from this list. A client with any cases attached can't be deleted — delete or reassign those cases first.

Shows every upcoming hearing across all cases in a monthly view, so you can see what's scheduled on any given day and jump straight to the related case.

User management (Admin → Users): add a user, edit name/email/role/password, activate/deactivate, delete-with-transfer, and change roles (you can't change your own role). Per-user two-factor controls let you enable, disable, or reset 2FA — status shows as Off, Pending, or Active.

Workload view (Admin → Workload): a per-lawyer breakdown of open cases, outstanding balance, and all-time closed cases, sorted busiest-first, to help balance caseloads when assigning new intake. A banner flags any open case with no assigned lawyer.

Audit log (Admin → Audit): a complete, filterable history of every significant action — sign-ins, case/document/hearing/payment changes, user administration, 2FA changes, and more. Filter by action, user, entity type, and date range, and export the filtered results as CSV or PDF.

Firm settings (Admin → Settings): set your firm's GSTIN and registered address — these appear on every GST invoice you generate and are required before that feature is available at all. Both optional until you need to invoice a client. The same page has a Docket Letterhead field — typed exactly as it should appear at the bottom of a generated docket cover sheet (name, designation, chamber address, phone; line breaks are kept as typed) — required before Create Docket works on a case, plus Position, Font size, and Color controls next to it to place and style that letterhead block, and a separate Page color for everything else on the docket (case details, party names, the divider lines). And an AI features toggle — off by default for every firm, since sending a document to Claude is a confidentiality decision your firm should make knowingly. Turning it on enables document translation, AI-assisted case intake, document summaries, Ask this case, and Suggest argument points; turning it off disables all of them immediately, firm-wide.

Court holidays (Admin → Court Holidays): controls how limitation deadlines extend when they land on a non-working day. A weekly-schedule toggle for whether Saturdays count as non-working (Sundays always do), plus a list of specific holiday dates you maintain yourself — CaseDeck doesn't ship a built-in national holiday calendar, since Indian court calendars are state- and court-specific and change yearly. For a multi-day closure (e.g. Onam or the Christmas court vacation), set a To date alongside the start date to add every day in between in one go — the list shows it as a single range, and any single day within it can still be removed on its own if needed. Every holiday you add also shows on the Calendar page, shaded and labeled, alongside hearings.

Law library (Admin → Law library): Bare Acts, favourite judgments, and other law PDFs your firm reuses when suggesting argument points. Upload each PDF once — encrypted like other firm files, not attached to any one case — and lawyers tick which titles to send on a given case. Scanned PDFs with no text layer can't be ticked until they have extractable text. Cap is 40 PDFs per firm.

Use the language switcher in the top navigation to toggle between English and Malayalam. Your choice is remembered for future visits.

CaseDeck is an installable web app (PWA):

• iPhone/iPad (Safari) — tap the Share icon (the square with an arrow pointing up) in the toolbar, then scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen. This only appears in Safari itself — if you opened the link from another app (Gmail, WhatsApp, etc.), open it in Safari first.
• Android (Chrome) — tap the ⋮ menu in the top-right, then tap Add to Home Screen or Install app.
• Desktop (Chrome/Edge) — look for the install icon in the address bar.

Once installed, it opens in its own window and works with a basic offline shell even without a connection — though anything needing live data still requires network access.

• Every document you upload is encrypted (AES-256) before it's stored, so the file contents are protected at rest — not just while transferring.
• Every document upload is also hashed (SHA-256) at upload time, so evidence integrity can be independently verified later.
• All data — uploaded documents/files and the database — is hosted on infrastructure located in India.
• Your data is kept fully private and is never shared or visible outside your firm.
• Every significant action is recorded in the audit log with who did it and when.
• After 5 wrong password attempts in a row, an account is temporarily locked for 15 minutes — the login page will say how many minutes are left. This resets automatically as soon as the correct password is entered.
• Passkeys (Face ID / fingerprint) are a full sign-in on that device. They don't replace password + 2FA as a fallback on other devices.