Been served papers with a deadline? Upload the messages, letters and orders. EvidenceCanvas drafts your statement in response, position statement and chronology in court format, from your own documents. Then it checks its own draft and fixes what it finds.
For family proceedings in England and Wales: C100 · FHDRA · Form E · FL401 · PD27A bundles
Start on the free plan. You confirm your email with a one-time code first. Not legal advice.
What help costs
About £200 to over £500 an hour. The court's guideline hourly rates for solicitors run from £200 an hour outside London to £579 an hour for senior solicitors in central London (Guideline Hourly Rates 2026). A statement and a hearing bundle take several hours of their time, before the hearing itself.
Usually charge by the hour or by the hearing. Rates vary from one McKenzie friend to another, so ask for a written quote. Help in court, but the paperwork is still yours to write. The founder of EvidenceCanvas offers this at £95 an hour: see below.
From £89 a month, or £44.50 at the founding price. The founding price is 50% off the first 12 monthly payments for the first 20 paid subscriptions, and the offer closes at 23:59 (UK time) on Friday 6 November 2026; there is also a free plan. Drafts, chronology and bundle from your own documents, checked before you see them.
Solicitor figures are the guideline hourly rates in force from 1 January 2026 (grade C solicitor, National 2, to grade A, London 1), published by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary; they guide costs assessed by the court, and firms set their own prices.
I built EvidenceCanvas after a long run as a litigant in person in the family court. I also help parents myself, as a McKenzie friend. You still speak for yourself in court. You don't have to do it alone.
Up to 80% less per hour than a senior London solicitor.1
The rules come from the Practice Guidance: McKenzie Friends (Civil and Family Courts), July 2010. McKenzie friend or solicitor: what each can do.
I read every enquiry myself and reply by email or phone.
Email hello@evidencecanvas.co.uk with your name, the type of case and the date of your next hearing, or call 07933 848705.
Please leave out children's names and case numbers.
1 Solicitor rates are the Guideline Hourly Rates 2026 published by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, in force from 1 January 2026. Against £579 an hour (grade A, solicitor with over 8 years' experience, London 1), £95 an hour is 84% less. Against £295 (grade A, National 1) it is 68% less, and against £200 (grade C, National 2) it is 52% less. Guideline rates guide the costs a court assesses; firms set their own prices, and the total depends on the hours your case needs.
Every upload is dated, read and pinned to an exhibit number. Scroll to run a synthetic matter through the reader.
Separation. The children stay in the family home.
[EV 01]Everything a family court expects from you, built from the same evidence so the numbers, dates and exhibit references agree.
Every dated event from your uploads in strict order, each line tied to the exhibit that proves it.
Neutral wording · exhibit-referencedIndexed, paginated and sectioned the way the practice direction sets out, ready to send.
PD27A sections · page-numberedYour account in your own first-person voice, one issue per numbered paragraph, with the statement of truth.
≤ 25 pages · 1.5 spacingWhat you ask the court for and why, framed around the welfare checklist, short enough to be read.
≤ 1,200 words · welfare checklistParagraph by paragraph: what you accept, what you dispute and the evidence for each answer.
Point-by-point · sourcedTwelve months of statements parsed and reconciled, spending mapped to the Form E lines. Arithmetic by code.
FPR Part 9 · deterministic sumsEvery draft is attacked the way the other side's barrister would attack it. Whatever the AI can fix, it fixes. Anything it cannot fix stays marked in the text, with the reason, so nothing is buried.
First person, numbered paragraphs, every fact linked to an exhibit.
Overclaims, absolutes, gaps between what you say and what the exhibits show.
Rewritten to what the evidence supports. What cannot be fixed is marked.
A plain summary of what changed and what still needs you. Ask for another round any time.
7.My son has stayed with me every weekend since we separated. Since June 2025, on the dates recorded in my diary [EV 09], my son has stayed with me on alternate weekends.
8.He started at his current school in September ⟦TO RESOLVE: the year is not in any document you uploaded⟧.
STATUS OF THIS DRAFT Reviewed and revised automatically: 1 round Fixed: overclaim in para 7 bounded to the diary Still to resolve: 1 item, marked in the text Released, not held back. Review by a solicitor or McKenzie friend is optional.
You stay in control. Ask for another red-team pass whenever you like, and check every draft before you file it.
Captured on the production service during today's test run, with an invented case. Every step and every result is published.
No "always" or "never" unless the evidence shows it. Judges notice, and so does the other side.
A sentence without a source is flagged before it reaches the page.
Framed around the welfare checklist, never used as a weapon against the other parent.
First person and plain English. It should read like you on your clearest day.
Drafts are written to the page and word limits. Check the page count before you file.
Dates and sums are calculated in code, and you confirm each one.
Before any text leaves your workspace, names, phone numbers and addresses are replaced with labels. The draft comes back with the labels swapped back. Each matter is sealed from every other.
McKenzie friends and solicitors run separate, sealed workspaces for each person they support: structured intake, drafts in minutes and a record of every instruction and change.
Bring what you have; it sorts the rest. Start on the free plan.
Start on the free plan