Day 16 – Building Calendar Events That Actually Matter

#30daysoflearning #webdev #learning #nextjs

If you told me at the start of this internship that I’d be stressing over date pickers, I would’ve laughed.

But here we are. On Day 16, I built the calendar event management system inside Lura — and it’s one of the most human features we’ve touched so far.

🗓️ Why Calendars Matter in Legal Work
Lawyers deal with time-sensitive responsibilities. One missed court date, one forgotten contract review — it’s chaos. So for Lura, we had to build a calendar system that didn’t just store events, but respected context.

We didn’t want a global calendar. We wanted event timelines scoped to cases.

⚙️ How It Works
Each event has:

Title
Description
Start/End DateTime
Related Case ID
CreatedBy & updatedBy
Visibility based on user role

On the backend, I used Prisma to define the model:

model Event {
  id          String   @id @default(uuid())
  title       String
  description String?
  startTime   DateTime
  endTime     DateTime
  caseId      String
  createdBy   String
  updatedAt   DateTime @updatedAt
}

The NestJS controller validates the input and checks role permissions — only Admins and Lawyers can create/edit, while Super Admins have global access.

@UseGuards(AuthGuard, RolesGuard)
@Roles('ADMIN', 'LAWYER')
@Post('/cases/:caseId/events')

💻 Frontend: The Form & List
I used Next.js with TailwindCSS to build a small, responsive form:

Date pickers for start/end
Character limits for titles
Real-time form validation

Events appear in a clean list under each case view. I kept it simple, but clear — readable datetime, case context, and edit/delete buttons (based on role).

🧠 Things That Surprised Me

Date logic gets tricky fast – I had to handle overlapping events and timezone issues even for internal use.
Empty states matter – If a case has no events, that should be obvious and friendly, not just blank.
People really trust their calendars – this reminded me how much power (and responsibility) we have when storing others' plans.

✅ Key Lessons

Always connect calendar features to the real world — lawyers don’t want clutter, they want clarity.
Backend validation is just as important as UI — especially for date logic.
Don’t underestimate “boring” UX details. Smart defaults go a long way.

❓Question for You:
When you build event or calendar features, do you prefer a dedicated calendar UI — or filtered event lists?

Let me know how you approach these tiny-but-vital features.

See you on Day 17 👋