Methodology
Methodology
Deadline Engine calculates dates from primary procedural materials and shows the rule context needed to check the result.
Page last updated 31 August 2026. Each encoded rule shows its own review date.
How a rule becomes code
- 1The rule is identified from its primary source, practice direction, or official tribunal material.
- 2The trigger event, period, counting method, and citation are encoded as typed application logic.
- 3Worked examples and edge cases are compared against the computed result before the rule is treated as ready.
- 4Rules are revisited when procedural amendments, tribunal guidance, or bank holiday data change.
What is adjusted automatically
Deadline Engine handles deemed service, clear-day treatment where the rule calls for it, business-day adjustments, and official bank holidays.
Court office closure periods and rule-specific non-business-day treatment are applied inside the calculation layer rather than left for users to remember after the date has been produced.
Primary sources
Source materials
The source material below represents the kinds of rules and official materials used across the supported jurisdictions.
12source categories
- Civil Procedure Rules
- CPR Practice Directions
- Pre-action Protocols
- Family Procedure Rules
- Criminal Procedure Rules
- Employment Tribunal Rules
- FCA Handbook
- First-tier Tribunal Rules
- Insolvency Act and Rules
- Companies Act 2006
- Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996
- Landlord and Tenant materials
Coverage boundary
What the current release does and does not cover
Included
The canonical inventory is the all calculators page. Its available rule inventory publishes the stable rule identifier, trigger, ordinary period, citation, review horizon, paid eligibility and current release test status. The result applies only to the rule and inputs shown.
Excluded
The engine does not determine jurisdiction, interpret evidence, read court orders or party agreements, decide whether a discretion will be exercised, complete filing or service, or calculate any rule that is not listed. Local practice and matter-specific variations must be checked separately.
Paid record coverage
An Evidence Record or Professional save is offered only where the result has a server recomputation adapter. The server validates the inputs and runs the production calculation again, so the stored dates, citations and working come from the server result. The canonical jurisdiction coverage page states whether matter saving and Evidence Records are supported. Other available calculators remain free to calculate, inspect, copy and print. A rule marked “Needs verification” is never eligible for a paid record.
Review cadence
Rules are reviewed when procedural amendments take effect, when tribunal materials change, and when official bank-holiday data updates. The aim is to keep the system current without hiding the fact that legal rules can move.
Report a correction
If you think a calculation is wrong, email deadlineengine@thesmios.com with the trigger date, practice area, expected result, and supporting source.
A potentially unsafe rule is withdrawn from paid evidence while it is reviewed. We preserve the original record, identify affected saved calculations, matter deadlines and Evidence Record orders from the stored rule identifier and citation, and record every notification attempt in a correction ledger. Confirmed corrections create a new calculation version and a dated entry in the change log. Historical evidence is not silently overwritten.
- 1. Withdraw the affected rule from new paid evidence while it is reviewed.
- 2. Reproduce the issue against the primary source and obtain approval for any rule change.
- 3. Query saved records by stable rule ID and citation, then classify every match.
- 4. Notify affected account holders with the records and dates that require checking.
- 5. Publish the correction, record unresolved contacts and issue non-destructive recalculations.
Notifications are currently operated through the paid support channel rather than sent automatically. That manual boundary is retained in the incident record until every affected record is delivered, waived or escalated.
FAQ
Common launch questions
Is Deadline Engine legal advice?
No. Deadline Engine is software, not legal advice. Every output must be checked against the underlying rule and the facts of the matter.
How are calculations produced?
Calculations are produced by deterministic rule logic encoded from procedural rules, practice directions, statutory materials, and official guidance. Deadline Engine does not use AI to calculate deadlines.
Which jurisdictions are covered?
20 jurisdiction calculators are currently available free. Professional matter saving is fully supported in 19 and partially supported in 1. Evidence Record support is stated per calculator because some rule families do not yet have a paid server-recomputation path. International arbitration supports eligible fixed, server-recomputed deadlines; advisory, variable, minimum-only and verification-flagged periods remain free-only. The British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man are unavailable because their time-suspending court vacations are not modelled.
Can I cancel?
Yes. Subscriptions are managed through the billing portal in your account, and cancellation takes effect according to the subscription terms shown there.
Do you store matter data?
If you create an account, saved matters, deadlines and audit logs are stored so you can return to them. Data handling is described in the Privacy Policy.
Can I export my data?
Yes. Account tools include data export for saved records and calculation audit information where available.