Court Deadline and Prescription Agent
The Court Deadline and Prescription Agent calculates procedural deadlines under the Uniform Rules of Court, Magistrates' Courts Rules and divisional practice directives, counting court days and excluding weekends and public holidays. It tracks prescription periods under the Prescription Act on every claim, and sends diary reminders to the responsible attorney well before each date.
Ideal forLitigation attorneys
The difference
From 20-30 minutes per deadline event to 2-5 minutes
Attorneys spend less time counting days and have far greater confidence that nothing falls through the cracks.
Done by hand
20-30 minutes per deadline event
With the Vanine agent
2-5 minutes
Time returned to your team
85%
Indicative figures. We measure your own baseline in the first fortnight so the numbers you see are yours.
Protection against costly mistakes
A missed dies or a prescribed claim can cost a client their case and expose the firm to a claim. The agent gives every matter a second, systematic check.
Consistent calculations
Counting court days, public holidays and the court recess by hand is error-prone. The agent calculates the same way every time and shows its working.
Visibility across the practice
Partners and practice managers see upcoming deadlines across all matters, so workload and risk are managed before they become urgent.
Capabilities
Never miss a dies or a prescription date again.
Built for litigation attorneys, candidate attorneys, legal secretaries, practice managers and in-house legal teams managing court matters and claims in South Africa.
Procedural deadline calculation
Calculates dies for notices of intention to defend, pleas, replies, discovery, and filing of heads of argument under the Uniform and Magistrates' Courts Rules.
Court day counting
Counts court days correctly, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and shows each calculation so it can be checked.
Practice directive rules
Applies the timelines set by divisional practice directives, including those for Court Online and CaseLines divisions.
Prescription tracking
Records when each claim arose and tracks prescription under the Prescription Act 68 of 1969, generally three years for ordinary debts, with early warnings.
Diary reminders and escalation
Adds deadlines to Outlook calendars and your practice management system, and escalates to a supervising partner when a date approaches without action.
Deadline dashboard
Gives partners a live view of upcoming deadlines and prescription dates across the practice, by attorney and matter.
How it works
From your systems to a result you sign off
The responsible attorney confirms each calculated deadline before it is relied on and decides what action to take.
Connect the places your matter diaries already live.
Served and filed documents, court notices and matter details from Outlook, Court Online, CaseLines and your practice management system. Already use something else? We connect that too.
- OpenAI Frontier
- Your own AI platform or models
- Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, Excel)
- Outlook calendars and Teams
- Copilot Studio
- LegalSuite, GhostPractice and AJS
- Court Online and CaseLines
Runs continuously on a schedule as new documents arrive, and on request in Teams or OpenAI Frontier, using the models your organisation approves.
Diary entries in Outlook and your practice management system, reminders in Teams and a deadline dashboard in Excel or SharePoint.
Step by step
- 01
A document is served, filed or received on a matter.
- 02
The agent identifies the triggering event and the applicable rule or directive.
- 03
It calculates the deadline in court days and checks prescription dates.
- 04
The responsible attorney confirms the deadline.
- 05
The agent diarises it and sends reminders and escalations as the date approaches.
Deployment
Runs inside the tools your team already uses
The same agent and the same cited output, delivered three ways: through the AI assistant you have rolled out, on a model you host yourself, or inside your own software.
In the frontier assistant you already pay for
We publish the agent as an MCP server. Add it as a connector and your team calls it from the chat they use every day, with no new tool to learn.
"When was the summons served, and in which court?"
- court
- Western Cape Division
- matters
- 312 open
On a model you host yourself
Run the agent on open-weight models in your data centre or private cloud. Your matter diaries never leave your network, which keeps POPIA and data residency straightforward.
- Llama
- Mistral
- Ollama
- or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
Inside your own software
Trigger a run from your own workflows, and push the finished output into your ERP, GRC or reporting systems. We build the integration with your team.
- REST API
- Webhooks
- Batch jobs
- Embeddable review panel
Governed the same way, every route
Whichever way your team reaches the agent, identity, permissions and audit stay with your existing controls.
- Single sign-on through Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace
- Reads only the documents each user is already allowed to open
- Every tool call written to an audit log you can export
How we deliver it
One agent, three ways to hold it
Start where your team already works, then take it as far into your systems as the value justifies.
DATA SECURITY & PRIVACY
Your matter diaries stay yours.
The agent runs inside your tenancy, reads only what each task needs, and never trains on your matter diaries. Every step is logged so your auditors can see exactly what it touched.
Built for regulated work.
+YOUR MATTER DIARIES NEVER LEAVE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
More agents
More agents we build for South African enterprises
Each one is built on the same foundation: your documents, your rules, and your people signing off.
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