Case Management Software Philippines: A Practical Guide

Every litigator in the Philippines knows this moment. An order arrives. Someone signs for it. Then comes the big question, and the order does not answer it: when does our period run out?

This guide is for lawyers, secretaries, paralegals and litigation staff who keep a docket moving. It covers four things:

• why tracking cases is hard,
• the periods every tracker must get right,
• the tools firms use today, and
• a checklist for choosing case management software in the Philippines.

Some people call it legal case management software. Some call it a case management system. Many offices just call it “the docket.” The checklist works for all of them.

Why legal case tracking is hard in Philippine practice

Court mail starts the clock

Most filing periods are counted from the date of receipt. The date of receipt is the day your office is considered to have received the paper. That could be summons, a decision, or an order denying a motion for reconsideration.

What counts is when service was complete. It is not the day someone finally opened the envelope.

The 2019 amendments to the Rules of Court explain this in Rule 13, Section 15:

• Personal service is complete on actual delivery.
• Service by registered mail is complete on actual receipt, or five calendar days after the addressee received the first notice from the postmaster, whichever is earlier.
• Electronic service is complete at the time of transmission.

So someone must record who received each paper, when, and how it was served. If that record lives in one person’s memory or inbox, the whole firm carries the risk.

Hearings get set, reset and set again

One case can have many settings. There is pre-trial, court-annexed mediation (CAM), judicial dispute resolution (JDR), arraignment, trial dates, formal offer and promulgation.

Settings are often reset. A reset means the court moves a hearing to a new date. Each new date usually arrives by notice of hearing, which is the paper from the court that tells you when and where the next hearing is.

With every reset, the “next hearing” on a whiteboard goes stale. The team needs one current answer to a simple question: what’s next on this case?

The file lives in three places

A case file has three kinds of papers:

• the client’s documents,
• the other side’s pleadings and motions, and
• the court’s orders and notices.

When these sit in different folders, drives and chat threads, finding the paper that started a period becomes a search.

Court deadline tracking: the periods every tracker must get right

A reglementary period is the time the rules give you to file something, such as an answer or an appeal. Miss it, and you may lose the chance to file.

Below are common periods under the Rules of Court as amended in 2019 (A.M. No. 19-10-20-SC, effective 1 May 2020) and related rules. Use them as a starting point. They do not replace the rule itself or the court’s order.

Common periods under the Rules of Court

Paper received or event	What is due	Period	Source
Summons	Answer	30 calendar days after service of summons, unless the court fixes a different period. One extension of up to 30 days, for meritorious reasons	Rule 11, Secs. 1 and 11
Judgment or final order	Notice of appeal	15 days from notice (30 days where a record on appeal is required)	Rule 41, Sec. 3
Judgment or final order	Motion for new trial or reconsideration	Within the period for appeal. No extension allowed	Rule 37, Sec. 1; Rule 41, Sec. 3
Order denying a timely motion for new trial or reconsideration	Notice of appeal	A fresh 15 days from receipt of the order	Neypes v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 141524
Judgment, order or resolution	Petition for certiorari	60 days from notice, or from notice of the denial of a timely motion. Extensions were removed by A.M. No. 07-7-12-SC	Rule 65, Sec. 4
Notice of pre-trial	Pre-trial brief	Must be received by the court and the other party at least 3 calendar days before pre-trial	Rule 18, Sec. 6
Summons, summary procedure	Answer	30 calendar days. Extensions prohibited	A.M. No. 08-8-7-SC
Summons, small claims	Response (Form 3-SCC)	10 calendar days, non-extendible	A.M. No. 08-8-7-SC, Rule IV, Sec. 13

The summary procedure and small claims periods come from the Rules on Expedited Procedures in the First Level Courts. They apply to cases filed from 11 April 2022.

How to count under Rule 22

Rule 22, Section 1 sets the method:

1. Leave out the day of the act or event that starts the period.
2. Include the last day.
3. If the last day falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a legal holiday in the place where the court sits, the period runs until the next working day.

That last phrase matters. Local holidays depend on where the court sits. So a tool that only knows weekends still needs a person to check the calendar.

Backward counts work differently. A pre-trial brief must be received at least three calendar days before the pre-trial. So you count back from the pre-trial date. If that lands on a weekend, aiming for the working day before is the safer course. Confirm with the handling lawyer.

A worked example

Say the firm receives a decision on Friday, 2 October 2026. The client wants to appeal.

• Day 0 is Friday, 2 October. It is not counted.
• Counting 15 days lands on Saturday, 17 October.
• Under Rule 22, the period runs to the next working day: Monday, 19 October 2026.

This example counts weekends only. Before you rely on the date, check national and local holidays for the place where the court sits.

Filing on the last day leaves no room for problems. Many offices keep a buffer. With a five-day office allowance, the office target is Wednesday, 14 October. The legal last day stays Monday, 19 October. The target drives the work. The legal last day is the line you cannot cross.

Extensions count from the original due date

When an extension is granted, count it from the original due date. This is true even if that date fell on a weekend or holiday. The rule comes from A.M. No. 00-2-14-SC, as quoted by the Supreme Court in De la Cruz v. Maersk Filipinas Crewing (G.R. No. 172038, 2008).

Here is an example. Summons is served on Friday, 25 September 2026. Thirty days lands on Sunday, 25 October, so the answer is due on Monday, 26 October. Now say the court grants a 30-day extension. You count it from Sunday, 25 October. The extended due date is Tuesday, 24 November 2026, not Wednesday, 25 November. Again, check holidays.

Logbooks, spreadsheets, software and boards: an honest comparison

Each method can work. The real question is how much it depends on one careful person.

Paper logbooks and case folders

Logbooks are familiar, and handwriting is its own record. But the book sits in one place. When the lawyer is in court and the logbook is at the office, “When did we receive that order?” has to wait.

Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet is flexible and free to start. But formulas get overwritten. Several copies of the same file float around. There is no record of who changed a date, or why. And the documents usually live somewhere else.

Dedicated case management software

Purpose-built software keeps cases, dates and people in one shared record. Many tools handle calendars and hearings well. When you compare options, look past the calendar. Check how each one handles documents, case stages, roles and the way it counts periods.

A Kanban board of case stages

A Kanban board shows each case as a card in a column, such as Filed or Hearing. You see the whole docket at a glance. You move a card when the case moves.

A board is not magic. It still needs good dates and people who keep it updated. What it does well is make a stalled case easy to spot.

What to look for in a case management system in the Philippines

Use this checklist when you compare tools, including ours.

1. Philippine litigation stages. Stages that follow how cases move here, from intake to decision, with room for your own.
2. Deadlines counted from the date of receipt. Counted under Rule 22: leave out day 0, and if the last day is a weekend or holiday, move it to the next working day. (DocketPH skips weekends but not holidays.)
3. Honest holiday handling. If the tool doesn’t know local holidays, it should say so on every date.
4. Legal last day and office target, side by side, with firm-level control over the allowance.
5. Suggestions, not silent answers. A lawyer should see every counted date and check it against the order and the Rules.
6. Reminders before the date. A nudge before a deadline or hearing, sent to the person handling the case, in the app and by email.
7. One calendar of what’s coming. Hearings and deadlines by month, so nobody rebuilds the week from memory.
8. Sensible role limits. Staff log mail and upload files. Firm settings and rule changes stay with partners or administrators.
9. Documents sorted by source. Client, opposing party, court and firm papers kept on the case, not in a shared drive.
10. A case history. Who moved the case, changed a date or added a document, and when.
11. Security and data basics. Access limited to your firm, a clear privacy policy under the Data Privacy Act of 2012, and a straight answer on how you can get your data out.

Where DocketPH fits

DocketPH is case management software for Philippine law firms, made by Jeva Technologies. The board is the docket. It runs in the browser on desktop and phone.

Available now

• A Kanban case board. It starts with Philippine litigation stages: Intake, Filed, Hearing, For Decision and Closed. Owners and admins can add their own columns.
• Clients, and cases with the fields a Philippine docket uses. Court level, branch, docket number, prosecutor’s office, opposing party and counsel, practice type, next hearing and its type, next deadline and outcome. Hearing types include pre-trial, CAM, JDR, arraignment, trial, formal offer and promulgation. Cards show how many days are left, colour-coded.
• One next hearing and one next deadline per case. Each case keeps the next setting and the next deadline. When a new order changes them, the case history records the change.
• Log court order. Upload the paper, choose its type, and type in the date of receipt. DocketPH then works out a suggested legal last day and a suggested office target from 19 built-in rules, adjusted by your firm’s settings. It shows the rule it used. It skips weekends but not holidays, so it also shows a “Check holidays” warning. Check both dates yourself against the order and the Rules. When you save, the office target becomes the case’s next deadline.
• Notices of hearing. Log a notice of hearing and enter the new date. DocketPH updates the case’s next hearing instead of starting a deadline.
• Deadline rules per firm. Owners and admins can set the office allowance, switch a rule off, or change a period. Making a period longer than DocketPH’s built-in default needs a written reason. Every edit is recorded.
• A calendar of your hearings and deadlines. A month view of the hearings and deadlines on the cases assigned to you. It shows the hearing type, the client and the docket number. Show hearings, deadlines or both. Click an entry to open the case.
• 8 AM reminders. Every morning at 8 AM Manila time, DocketPH checks the cases assigned to you. It sends a reminder only on days when something is due. By default you hear about a deadline on the due date and a week before, and about a hearing on the day and three days before. Reminders arrive in the app and by email. You can switch either one off, or add other days up to 90 days ahead.
• Documents on the case. Upload PDF, Word and image files and keep them on the case, sorted into Client, Opposing, Court and Firm.
• Comments with @mentions. Comments and card moves show up for teammates right away.
• Notifications in the app, plus an email digest of unread ones, when you are assigned, mentioned or replied to.
• Roles and invitations. Every workspace has an Owner. Invite teammates by email as Admin, Member or Staff. Only owners and admins change firm settings, members and deadline rules.
• Case history. It shows who did what, and when: edits to case details, moves between columns, documents added or removed, and court orders logged. Comments, client records, board changes, file views and sign-ins are not part of the history.

The built-in rules cite the Rules of Court and related rules and circulars, but no lawyer has reviewed them yet. Treat every date as a suggestion and check it yourself.

Worth knowing before you start

• Holidays are on you. DocketPH skips weekends but does not know national or local holidays. That is why every counted date shows “Check holidays.”
• One court paper at a time. Log court order takes one paper per entry.
• Files are stored, not read. DocketPH keeps your files on the case. Nothing reads or searches the text inside them.
• No court filing. DocketPH does not file anything with the courts.
• Your team only. There is no client portal and no client messaging. There is no spreadsheet import, so you add cases one by one.
• Your calendar, not the firm’s. The calendar shows only the cases assigned to you. There is no firm-wide calendar, calendar feed or Google Calendar sync.
• No bulk export yet. You can download files one at a time, but there is no way to export all your data yet.

Our Terms and Privacy Policy explain how we handle your data.

Try it with your team

DocketPH is open now. If you’d like to try it with your firm, open a free workspace. See whether the board fits the way your office works.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Rules and periods change. Verify every period against the current Rules of Court, the court’s issuances and any order in your case. DocketPH is practice software, not a law firm.

Frequently asked questions