Draft a motion from your matter’s facts and your notes

Start from the record and your theory

A motion is an argument about specific facts under a specific standard. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7(b)(1), a motion must be in writing unless made at a hearing or trial, state the grounds with particularity, and state the relief sought. A useful first draft makes both the grounds and the relief obvious on page one, and it can only do that if Draftiro has the documents and your thinking.

• Upload what the motion turns on. The complaint and answer, the discovery requests and responses, the scheduling order, key correspondence.
• Say what you want. Name the court, the motion, the relief and the theory. Paste your outline or bullet notes.
• Name the authorities you trust. If you already know the cases you want to rely on, list them. That keeps the draft close to law you have read.
• Show it a model. Draftiro has no saved firm style today. Upload a prior filing to the matter and ask it to follow that structure and wording. It reads the text, not the layout, so captions and formatting are finished in Word.

When you ask about the matter in chat, the response lists the matter files it drew on as numbered sources, so you can open the document behind a factual statement.

Structure for three common motions

Motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (Rule 12(b)(6))

The motion tests whether the complaint's factual allegations, taken as true, state a plausible claim under the pleading standard of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). A common structure is a short introduction stating the relief, the allegations as pleaded, the legal standard, a claim-by-claim argument on the missing element, and a conclusion that says whether dismissal should be with or without prejudice. Under Rule 12(d), presenting matters outside the pleadings can convert the motion to one for summary judgment, so the draft should stay inside the complaint. Our 12(b)(6) drafting guide covers each section in detail.

Motion to compel (Rule 37(a))

A motion to compel identifies the requests, the responses or objections, why each is deficient, and the order you want. Rule 37(a)(1) requires a certification that you conferred, or tried to confer, in good faith before filing, and many courts add their own meet-and-confer procedures. Draftiro can draft the deficiency letter that comes first and the motion that follows, from the requests and responses in the matter. It cannot certify that a conference happened. That is your representation to the court.

Motion for extension of time (Rule 6(b))

Keep it short: the deadline and how it was set, the extension requested, the reason, prior extensions, and whether the other side consents. Rule 6(b)(1) allows an extension for good cause if you ask before the time expires; after it expires, you need a motion and a showing of excusable neglect. Draftiro's court-day calculator counts days under FRCP 6 against federal and selected state holiday calendars, but it does not derive a deadline from a triggering event. See the federal court-day guide.

What the citation status means

When a chat response contains a supported case citation, Draftiro can check it against CourtListener when that check is available. As of October 2026 the CourtListener connection is not switched on in production, so case citations currently show as Unchecked. Once the check runs, each case citation shows one of three statuses:

• Verified. CourtListener returned a matching case. This does not mean the case says what the draft says it says, that the pin cite is right, or that the case is still good law.
• Not found. The check ran and found no match. Treat the citation as possibly fabricated until you locate it yourself.
• Unchecked. The check did not run, or the citation could not be matched with confidence. Statutes, rules and regulations are always unchecked.

Statutes and rules are not checked. The help article on how citation checks work explains the details, and the glossary entry on AI hallucination explains why a status is a starting point, not a substitute for reading the authority.

What you must verify before filing

• Local rules and standing orders. Page or word limits, formatting, pre-motion conference requirements, certification language, notice and hearing procedures, proposed orders. Draftiro does not check any of them.
• The standard. Confirm the governing standard and any circuit or state variations in your court.
• Every citation and every pin cite. Read each authority. Confirm the proposition, the page and the subsequent history.
• Every fact. Check each factual statement against the record, and for a 12(b)(6) motion, against the complaint itself.
• Your Rule 11 certification. By signing, you certify that legal contentions are warranted by existing law or a nonfrivolous argument for changing it, and that factual contentions have evidentiary support. A draft's origin does not change that duty.

A worked example

You represent a defendant in federal court. The complaint has three counts, and the second recites the elements of its claim without alleging facts for one of them. You create a matter, upload the complaint and the contract it attaches, and write three lines of notes: move to dismiss count two only; the missing element and the paragraphs that come closest to it; rely on Twombly and Iqbal for the standard.

You ask in chat for a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss count two, following your notes. The response is a draft with an introduction, the allegations of count two as pleaded, the standard, an argument on the missing element, and a conclusion. The two Supreme Court citations carry a status under the response; today that status is Unchecked, and either way you read both opinions. Rule 12(b)(6) itself is not checked, because rules are not checked.

You then open the draft, cut what you would not argue, read both opinions to confirm each pin cite, check the local rules for page limits and any pre-motion conference requirement, and finish the document in Word. Nothing in this sequence replaces your judgment about whether the motion should be filed at all.