Dana writes CaseFilePrep document-preparation checklists. Her focus is the unglamorous part of a case: what paperwork exists, what order it belongs in, what a clerk will reject on sight, and how a self-represented filer can assemble a clean file without guessing. She reads the current court rules and published clerk instructions for every guide and re-checks them at each scheduled review.
Full profile and guidesAbout CaseFilePrep
We publish the procedural half of the legal system - the paperwork, the sequence, the deadlines - for people who are handling it themselves.
Why this site exists
Most people meet the legal system through paperwork, not argument. A small claims case is won or lost on whether you brought the invoice, the text messages and the delivery receipt in an order the judge can follow. An LLC is formed or rejected on whether the registered agent line was filled in correctly. An insurance claim is paid quickly or slowly depending on whether the file contains the police report number, photographs and receipts.
That procedural layer is public, knowable and largely un-explained. Court self-help pages are accurate but written for someone who already knows the vocabulary. Commercial sites explain just enough to sell a service. We sit in the gap: complete, plain-English, source-checked procedure with nothing to upsell.
What we are not
CaseFilePrep is a publisher, not a law firm. We do not give legal advice, review documents, prepare filings, or represent anyone. We have no referral arrangements with law firms and we do not take a cut of anyone’s case. When a matter needs a lawyer, our guides say so plainly rather than talking you out of it - that is the point at which our usefulness ends. See the full disclaimer.
How we work
Every guide is written by a named contributor with direct experience of the process, checked line by line against primary sources - statutes, court rules, clerk instructions, agency publications - and reviewed by a second named person before it publishes. Each guide carries a last-reviewed date and a list of the sources checked. We re-review on a six-month cycle and immediately when a rule changes. The full standard is written down in our editorial policy.
How the site is funded
Advertising, served by third parties including Google. That is the whole model. There are no paid placements in editorial content, no sponsored guides, no affiliate commissions on legal services, and no reader paywall. Ad units are labelled and kept clearly separate from the text so you always know which is which. Details of the cookies involved, and how to refuse them, are in our privacy policy.
Who we write for
Readers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia who are preparing their own documents, plus the small-business owners, office managers and support workers who help them. Where a procedure is jurisdiction-specific, the guide names the jurisdiction at the top and does not pretend to travel further than it does.
Talk to us
Corrections, questions and press: editorial@casefileprep.com. We treat a correction as the most valuable email we can receive. More ways to reach us are on the contact page.
Editorial team
Every guide names its writer and its reviewer. None of our contributors is acting as your attorney.
Marcus covers entity formation, registered agent requirements, franchise-tax calendars and the federal filings that follow. He has walked several thousand certificates of formation through state portals and writes from the rejection notices he has seen, not from marketing copy published by formation vendors.
Full profile and guidesPriya Raman
Claims Documentation Editor
Licensed property & casualty adjuster (inactive), CPCU coursework
Priya explains what an insurance carrier actually does with the file you send it. She writes CaseFilePrep incident-documentation checklists so readers capture the evidence that matters in the hours when it is still available, and understand which records a claims department will request weeks later.
Full profile and guidesCaseFilePrep Legal Research Team
Editorial Review Board
Certified paralegals, compliance analysts and professional editors
The CaseFilePrep Legal Research Team reviews each guide for procedural accuracy, currency of cited rules, and strict separation between educational process information and individual legal advice. The team removes or rewrites any passage that could read as a recommendation about a specific reader matter.
Full profile and guides