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If you are dealing with a civil dispute in England and Wales without a solicitor, you are a litigant in person. This page is a short walk-through of how Portia fits around that position: what you put in, what it does with what you put in, and what you have at the end.

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Who this is for

Portia is built for people bringing or defending a civil claim on their own, in England and Wales. The kinds of dispute it currently helps with include money owed for work done or goods supplied, a contract that has gone wrong, a problem with something you bought, a dispute where you rent, damage to your property or land, and a judgment against you that you want set aside. Family and immigration matters are outside its scope. If you are new to the idea of representing yourself, what is a litigant in person is a useful place to start.

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What you do first

You start by putting the documents you already have into Portia: the agreement, the invoices, the letters and emails, the photographs, whatever bears on the dispute. Portia works only from what you give it. It does not draw on outside facts about your case. You do not need a tidy set of papers before you begin. Part of what Portia is for is turning a pile into something ordered.

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What Portia does with them

Portia reads your documents and builds two things:
  • A chronology. A dated timeline of what happened and when, drawn from your documents.
  • An indexed set of exhibits. Every document has a reference and a place, ready to cite.
It then looks at the facts and identifies the recognised legal basis your dispute may rest on, called a cause of action, and the specific points that basis requires you to establish. Against that structure, it shows which of your documents support each point, and where the evidence is thin. This is a structural check on the material you have provided. It does not tell you whether you have a case, how strong it is, or whether you will win.

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What you can prepare

Once that groundwork is in place, Portia helps you prepare the documents the process involves, each one laid out in a structure a court would expect and grounded in the evidence you have uploaded. That currently includes: Each of these follows from the structure Portia has already mapped, so you are not writing from a blank page.

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What Portia will not do

Portia will not tell you whether you have a case, how strong your case is, or whether you will win. It will not recommend a course of action, give legal advice, act for you, or stand in for a solicitor or barrister. Those are the work of a regulated professional, or decisions that are yours to make. See what Portia will and won’t do for the full account of the lines it holds on purpose.

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Where to go next

Portia is a document-organisation tool for people handling civil disputes in England and Wales. It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Learn what Portia does.