Someone sent you this because a clock is running.
Maybe it is your clock. Maybe it belongs to someone you will not let face it alone. Either way: two minutes here tells you what kind of fight this is, how the deadline logic works, and which door is the right first knock. No fee. No account. Nothing sold on this page.
One promise before anything else: this page gives information about how the system behaves, never advice about what you should do. The decisions stay yours. That line is real and we hold it.
1. The clock is the whole game
If a court paper has a date or a deadline on it, that date outranks everything else in your life this month. In most states, a served summons gives you roughly 20 to 30 days to file a written response in the right form. Miss it and the other side can win automatically - a default judgment - without anyone ever hearing your side. More than 70 percent of debt collection cases end exactly that way (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2020).
You do not have to know what to file tonight. You have to know your date, write it in three places, and start walking toward a door below before the week is out.
2. What kind of fight is this?
Tap one. This is for routing, not diagnosis.
3. The right first knock
If money is tight: free legal aid exists in every state - start at LawHelp.org, and ask your county court about its self-help center (most have one, staffed, free).
If a program, union, school, or reentry organization already stands beside you: tell them about the deadline first. They can often move faster than you can alone - and desks like ours work through them.
If you can hire counsel: a limited-scope attorney (they exist; ask for "unbundled" help) can handle just the urgent filing without a five-figure retainer.
If you are handling it yourself: that is a real lane - most civil courtrooms in America have at least one side without a lawyer. It runs on deadlines and forms. See the Signal Check below.
4. The Signal Check
Ninety seconds. Tell us the shape of the fight and where it stands. We reply with a plain-language read of which door above fits and what the deadline logic around your kind of matter usually looks like - information, not advice, and it costs nothing.
Why we do this free: every Signal Check is one more data point on the map of where the system is failing people. The map is the mission. Your details stay with us.
For firms, programs, and platforms
Compass Outlaw is the drafting desk for the people the system prices out - serving the firms, reentry and advocacy programs, and pro se platforms that stand beside self-represented people.
The 30-minute test is free: you bring the claims and facts, we format and assemble to your state's Rules of Court, before the clock runs. Start the test.
Readers of AI Made Simple: the code MADESIMPLE holds the founding rate ($295, fixed scope) open for you beyond the first five. Mention the code when you write. Letter Desk stays $79 (a single demand or dispute letter, 24 hours).
Justice is no longer for sale.