📄 Smart Legal Document Manager

A lightweight document version control system for legal teams built using FastAPI and SQLite. The system allows lawyers to create, update, track versions, and compare document changes in a clear and structured way.

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🚀 Features

1️⃣ Document Creation

Users can create a new legal document with a title, content, and author.

2️⃣ Document Versioning

Every update creates a new version instead of overwriting the previous one.

Example:

Version 1

The company agrees to provide salary and benefits.

Version 2

The company agrees to provide salary, health benefits and insurance.

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3️⃣ Duplicate Version Detection

If a user tries to upload identical content, the system detects it and prevents creating a duplicate version.

Example response:

No changes detected. Version remains 2

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4️⃣ Version Comparison

Two versions of a document can be compared to highlight changes.

Output example:

+ The company agrees to provide salary, health benefits and insurance.
- The company agrees to provide salary and benefits.

Green lines indicate added content, while red lines indicate removed content.

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5️⃣ Crash-Safe Database Transactions

The system uses SQLAlchemy transactions to ensure that partial data is not saved if a failure occurs during updates.

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6️⃣ Clean Project Architecture

The project follows a modular backend structure to keep the code easy to maintain and understand.

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🧱 Tech Stack

Backend

• FastAPI
• Python
• SQLAlchemy
• SQLite

Frontend

• HTML
• CSS
• Vanilla JavaScript

Utilities

• difflib (Python library for text comparison)

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📁 Project Structure

smart-legal-document-manager

app
│
├── main.py
├── database.py
├── models.py
├── schemas.py
├── crud.py
├── notification.py
│
├── routes
│   └── document_routes.py
│
└── static
    └── index.html

requirements.txt
README.md

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⚙️ Installation

1️⃣ Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/smart-legal-document-manager.git
cd smart-legal-document-manager

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2️⃣ Create virtual environment

python -m venv venv

Activate it:

Windows

venv\Scripts\activate

Mac/Linux

source venv/bin/activate

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3️⃣ Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

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4️⃣ Run the server

uvicorn app.main:app --reload

Server will start at:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

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🧪 How to Use

Create Document

Enter:

• Title
• Content
• User

Click Create Document.

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Update Document

Enter:

• Document ID
• Updated content
• User

Click Update Version.

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Compare Versions

Enter:

• Document ID
• Version 1
• Version 2

Click Compare.

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📊 Example Workflow

1️⃣ Create a document 2️⃣ Update the document (new version created) 3️⃣ Compare two versions 4️⃣ View added and removed content

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🎯 Design Decisions

• Version based storage instead of overwriting documents
• Line-by-line comparison for legal readability
• Duplicate version prevention
• Transaction-safe updates

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📌 Future Improvements

• Document history panel
• Authentication for users
• Rich text document editor
• Role-based access control
• Cloud database support

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👨‍💻 Author

Built as part of an SDE-1 technical task demonstrating backend design, API development, and document version control systems.

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