Deadline & Key Date Extractor
When you receive any document with time-sensitive obligations: court orders, contracts, discovery requests, settlement agreements.
Missed deadlines are a serious source of malpractice exposure. Court orders, contracts, discovery requests, and settlement agreements all bury time-sensitive obligations in dense prose: some stated as fixed dates, others triggered by events like closing or service. Catching every one, and calculating the running clock on each, is tedious work that nonetheless has to be exactly right the first time.
Claude can do the first pass quickly. Paste a document and today's date, and Claude returns a chronological table of every deadline, what must happen, who is responsible, the consequence of missing it, and the days remaining, plus a separate note on event-triggered, recurring, or ambiguous dates. It turns an hour of careful reading into a structured list you can drop straight into your docketing workflow.
Treat the result as a first-pass extraction, not a substitute for calendaring discipline. Claude can misread an ambiguous trigger or compute a date without accounting for court holidays or local counting rules. Verify every date against the source document and your jurisdiction's rules before docketing. The output is a drafting aid for the attorney, not legal advice or a guaranteed calendar.
The Prompt
Extract every deadline, date, and time-sensitive obligation from the document below. <document> [PASTE THE DOCUMENT] </document> Document type: [e.g., court order, contract, discovery request, settlement agreement] Today's date: [DATE] My client's role: [ROLE] Court and jurisdiction (for court deadlines): [COURT] Method of service, if relevant: [e.g., electronic, mail] For each deadline or date, provide: 1. Date (exact, or calculated from the document) 2. The source language, quoted 3. How you computed it, if calculated 4. What must happen by that date 5. Who is responsible 6. Consequence of missing it (if stated or implied) 7. Days remaining from today's date Organize chronologically. Flag any deadline within the next 14 days as URGENT. Flag any date that falls on a weekend or legal holiday, or that depends on the service method or a court-rule computation (for example, under [APPLICABLE RULE]), so I can confirm it. After the list, note: - Deadlines that depend on another event (e.g., "30 days after closing") - Recurring obligations (e.g., quarterly reports, annual renewals) - Deadlines that are ambiguous or unclear This is a working list for attorney review, not the docket of record. If something I need is missing or ambiguous, say so instead of assuming. Do not invent dates; mark anything you are unsure of [VERIFY].
Example Output
A chronological deadline table with quoted source language, the computation for each calculated date, responsible parties, consequences, and days remaining, with urgent and holiday-affected dates flagged.
Illustrative example — names, figures, and facts are fictional.
KEY DATE EXTRACTION (WORKING LIST, NOT THE DOCKET OF RECORD) Document: Scheduling Order, Whitman v. Coastal Freight LLC, No. 2:26-cv-00418 Today's date: June 7, 2026 | Client role: Defendant # | Date | What Must Happen | Responsible | Consequence | Days Left --|---------------|------------------------------------------|-------------|------------------------|---------- 1 | Jun 19, 2026* | Rule 26(a)(1) initial disclosures | All parties | Exclusion of evidence | 12 URGENT 2 | Jul 15, 2026 | Amend pleadings / join parties | All parties | Leave required after | 38 3 | Sep 30, 2026 | Plaintiff's expert disclosures | Plaintiff | Exclusion of expert | 115 4 | Oct 30, 2026 | Defendant's expert disclosures | Defendant | Exclusion of expert | 145 5 | Jan 15, 2027 | Close of fact discovery | All parties | No further discovery | 222 6 | Feb 26, 2027 | Dispositive motions due | All parties | Waiver of MSJ | 264 * HOLIDAY FLAG: June 19, 2026 is Juneteenth, a federal legal holiday. Whether the deadline rolls to Monday, June 22 under Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a) depends on how the order states it. Docket June 19 unless confirmed. SOURCE LANGUAGE (excerpt) - Item 1: "Initial disclosures shall be served by June 19, 2026." (Order ¶ 2) EVENT-TRIGGERED - Expert rebuttal disclosures due 30 days after item 4. Computed: Oct 30 + 30 days = Nov 29, 2026, a Sunday. Confirm whether it rolls to Monday, Nov 30. RECURRING - Joint status reports due the first business day of each month until trial. AMBIGUOUS / VERIFY - The order says discovery motions are due "within a reasonable time" before the close of discovery; no fixed date stated. Confirm under the local rules.
Tips
- •Always include today's date so Claude can calculate days remaining.
- •For contracts, also ask for renewal and termination notice deadlines; these are easy to miss.
- •Verify each date against the source and your jurisdiction's computation rules before docketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I use this prompt?
Use it the moment a date-bearing document lands on your desk: a scheduling order, an executed contract, a discovery request, or a settlement agreement. Running the extraction immediately, before the file moves to the next task, ensures nothing slips through the gap between receipt and docketing. It is especially useful for long contracts where renewal and notice deadlines hide in the boilerplate.
Can I rely on the extracted dates without checking them?
No. Treat the table as a draft to verify, not a finished calendar. Claude can misinterpret an event-based trigger or compute a date without accounting for court holidays, mailbox rules, or local counting conventions. Confirm every date against the source document and the applicable rules before you docket anything. The attorney remains responsible for the calendar.
How do I get the most accurate output?
Always supply today's date so the days-remaining math is correct, and state your client's role so responsibility is assigned accurately. Paste the full document rather than excerpts, and explicitly ask Claude to flag renewal, termination, and notice deadlines plus any dates it finds ambiguous. The clearer the inputs, the fewer dates you have to chase down later.
Is it accurate enough to trust for docketing?
It is a strong starting point, but the duty of competence makes verification non-negotiable for anything calendar-critical. ABA Formal Opinion 512 confirms that a lawyer using AI must understand its limits and check its output. Use the extraction to make sure you have not overlooked a deadline, then independently confirm each date before it controls a filing.
Related Prompts
Get New Prompts Like This Every Week
Join the free Claude for Lawyers newsletter — weekly prompts, tutorials, and practice-specific guides.