Court-day math: federal vs state deadlines, explained

Filing deadlines look simple until you have a Monday holiday, a clerk's office that closes at 4 p.m., and a service rule that excludes weekends but counts the day of service. Get one of those wrong and you lose your motion on a technicality.

Federal Rule 6 in plain English

Under FRCP 6(a)(1), when you compute a period stated in days or longer:

• Exclude the day of the event that triggers the period.
• Count every day, including weekends and legal holidays.
• Include the last day. But if the last day is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the period continues to the next day that is not.

Where this trips up solo practice

1. State-court rules vary. Some states exclude weekends for periods under 11 days. California and New York have their own quirks.
2. Clerk's-office hours matter. If the last day's clerk closes at 4 p.m. and you file at 5 p.m., you're late even though the day was technically valid.
3. Federal holidays drift. Inauguration Day in DC is a holiday every four years. Juneteenth is a federal holiday post-2021. Your calendar tool may not know.

How Draftiro handles it

Draftiro's court-day calculator counts court days under FRCP 6 — and, for the five states whose judicial-holiday calendars we model (California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Illinois), against that state's holiday set — skipping weekends and the current federal-holiday list. It counts days against a holiday calendar; it does not derive a filing deadline from a triggering event, and it does not model individual clerk-of-court local closures. Always confirm the governing rule and any local closures yourself.