The First-Week Kit and The Case Snapshot

Also from Digital Dame Systems

The Playbook — the full method, start to finish. $49.

The Tutorial — includes the Playbook, plus the Claude skill and how it was built. $199.

The Setup Hour — a live lesson on the method. $100.

Everything — the Tutorial and the Setup Hour in one checkout. $299.

Two free tools for running your own case: what to do in your first week, and a form that puts your whole case on one page.

THE FIRST-WEEK KIT — ten pages

When I filed my own arbitration claim, I had no clear picture of what I had just walked into. I didn't know what I didn't know. This is the kit I wish someone had handed me in week one.

Seven actions to take, in order. Find the procedural rules that govern your case, and read them once. Give notice, or find your response date, and keep the proof. Start one calendar that holds every deadline you know of, each with a note of where it came from. Start a list of what you have verified, and which document proves it. Write a do-not-say list and read it before you write anything. Write down who is who. Put one folder around all of it, and get into the habit of writing rather than calling.

It also includes the do-not-say list as a printable tool, a one-page map of the whole road from filing to decision, and a short list of places to look if you cannot afford a lawyer.

THE CASE SNAPSHOT — six pages, fillable

I built this because I kept re-explaining my own case from the beginning — to myself, to a lawyer I was paying by the hour, and to an AI tool that started every session knowing nothing. The snapshot is the answer to all three. You fill it in once at the start, and you update it when something significant arrives: a ruling, a new document, a production, a date that moves.

Seven sections cover what the case is and who started it, a dated chronology with the document that proves each line (or the words "not confirmed"), who is who, the dates that are already fixed, what is still open, what you are trying to achieve, and the three questions you most need answered.

It comes two ways in the same file: a form with writing lines you can type into or print, and the same form as plain text you can copy and paste.

WHAT THESE ARE NOT

This is the setup, not the method. It will not tell you how to build a filing, how to check a source before you rely on it, or how to get your record ready for a hearing. Those are in the playbook.

Who it is for: anyone who has just been served, has just filed, or is about to, in any forum — court or arbitration — without a lawyer.