Your First Matter

A guided, end-to-end first run — take a practice matter from sample files all the way to a downloaded court bundle.

Welcome. In this tutorial we'll take a brand-new matter all the way through BriefTech together — from an empty matter to a finished court bundle you can open on your computer. By the end, you'll have loaded a set of documents, seen the AI describe them automatically, corrected a detail, built a Document Index, and generated and downloaded a bundle.

We'll work in a throwaway practice matter, and we'll use BriefTech's built-in sample files so you don't need to find any documents of your own. Nothing here touches a real case, and you can delete everything afterwards. The whole run takes about ten minutes.

Note: This is a learning walkthrough with one fixed path. Once you've done it:

• How-To Guides — how to do each task on real matters
• Reference — every option listed
• Concepts — why things work as they do

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Before you start

By the end of this tutorial you'll have:

• a practice matter loaded with a set of sample documents,
• AI-generated dates and descriptions for each one,
• a structured Document Index built from a preset, and
• a finished, paginated court bundle downloaded to your computer.

You don't need any documents of your own. BriefTech provides built-in sample files, and we work in a throwaway practice matter you can delete afterwards — nothing here touches a real case. All you need is a BriefTech account (we'll create one in Step 1 if you don't have it). The whole run takes about ten minutes.

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Step 1 — Sign in and create a practice matter

A matter is the container for a single case.

1. Open BriefTech in your browser and sign in. If you don't have an account yet, choose , , or to create one, then verify your email if prompted.
2. You'll land on the Matters screen. Click .
3. In Input Matter Reference, type Practice — Tutorial.
4. Click .

BriefTech opens the new matter on its tab. You should now see an empty document area with a Drop files or folders here for upload zone in the centre — your blank practice matter is ready.

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Step 2 — Load the sample files

Instead of hunting for documents to upload, we'll let BriefTech load a ready-made set for us.

On the empty upload screen, click the text link below the button: Just exploring? Load sample files to try BriefTech now.

BriefTech begins loading a sample set of around twenty documents of different types — PDFs, emails, and text notes. You should see the file list fill with documents as they load.

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Step 3 — Open the tab

As each document finishes processing, BriefTech automatically extracts a date and a description — no action required from you.

Open the tab. You should see a Date and Description filling in for each row as extraction runs in the background.

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Step 4 — Correct one detail

The AI is a strong start, but you're in charge. Let's refine a description so you can see how corrections work.

1. In the tab, pick any document row.
2. Double-click its Description cell. An inline editor opens.
3. Edit the text to improve or clarify it, then click outside the cell to save.

The cell updates immediately — there's no Save button. You should now see your revised description in that row, and it will stay that way: the AI won't overwrite a value you've set by hand.

Open the tab to continue.

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Step 5 — Build the Document Index

The Document Index is the ordered index that becomes the spine of your bundle. The fastest way to start one is to apply a preset.

1. In the tab, you'll see your documents listed in a table.
2. Click in the toolbar.
3. Under Apply bundle/index preset, select Bundle of Documents.
4. Under Generate index headings, select .
5. Under Sort all sections, select Date.

The table updates instantly. You should now see tidy columns — a serial-number column labelled Tab, then Date, Description, Vol, and Page — with headings generated from your folder structure and documents sorted by date within each section. That's your Document Index taking shape.

Tip: Bundle of Documents is a general-purpose preset — one of several. When you prepare a real matter you can pick the one that matches your court and document type. See Document Index presets for the full list and what each configures.

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Step 6 — Generate the court bundle

Now we'll turn that index and the documents into a paginated PDF.

1. In the toolbar, click . The Create Bundle panel opens on the right.
2. Leave every bundle setting at its default.
3. Click .

The bundle generation will take just a few minutes. You can navigate away — a notification appears in the Background jobs panel ( in the top bar) when the bundle is ready.

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Step 7 — Download your bundle

1. In the Create Bundle panel — the same panel you opened in Step 6 — find the completed bundle. (The Background jobs panel, opened from the icon in the top bar, shows the job's progress, but you download from the Create Bundle panel.)
2. On the bundle card, click the download icon.

The bundle downloads to your computer. You'll see a card for each volume PDF and a Complete Bundle (ZIP) card containing them all — download whichever you prefer, then open it.

You should now see a finished court bundle: a table of contents listing the documents, and the documents themselves with continuous page numbers stamped across them and bookmark links to each document.

That's a real, court-style bundle — built by BriefTech from scratch, for your review and approval, in seven steps.

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What you've accomplished

You took an empty matter and:

• loaded a set of documents and let them process,
• watched the AI automatically extract dates and descriptions, then corrected one yourself,
• built a structured Document Index from a preset — with folder-based headings and documents sorted by date, and
• generated and downloaded a paginated court bundle.

You now know the shape of the whole BriefTech pipeline. Everything else is a variation on these steps.

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Where to go next

Review an AI-Analysed Matter

A guided run through the Review stage — confirm, correct, and refine what the AI produced until the matter is ready to index.

How a matter moves through BriefTech

The staged pipeline and the two workstreams that run alongside it.

How AI analysis works: agents and playbooks

What agents and playbooks are, and what they extract.