Sentencing Guidelines Calculator for Michigan

Objective: Make Michigan’s guidelines manual usable

Michigan’s sentencing guidelines run more than 200 pages: crime classes, prior record and offense variables, and a grid for every class. Attorneys worked through them by hand. Mokasoft wanted an application that walks a user through a case, does the scoring, and produces the Sentencing Information Report, on a desktop or a phone.

What Web Ascender Did

We started in June 2014, right after launching Mokasoft’s Judgment Interest Calculator, and built the new app on the same foundation.

• Mapping the law to data - we documented every step of the calculation, designed the database around it, and walked example cases through it before writing the interface
• Wireframes and design - admin and user screens wireframed and reviewed with Mokasoft, then a design built for desktop and mobile
• An admin-managed dataset - crimes, variables, grids, and the help, instructions, and definitions all live in an admin area, loaded by a scripted Excel import
• Dataset cloning - Mokasoft can copy the whole dataset to prepare a guidelines update without touching the live one
• A sentencing wizard - enter a sentence with minimal information, score the prior record and offense variables in collapsible sections, and see the result update
• Sentencing grids - the grid for each crime class, with the user’s placement shown
• The Sentencing Information Report - generated as a PDF and emailed straight from the app
• Organized case lists - active, favorite, and archived sentences with search
• Subscriptions - Stripe billing, free trials, promo codes, and an admin trial override
• Tested and launched - automated tests, staging and production servers, and launch in July 2014

Since Launch

We have supported the calculator ever since. Additions include a Sentencing Information Report details feature, notes on individual variables, statutory maximums that account for habitual offender status, lead source tracking, terms of service, and single-device logins. In 2024 we moved the app to an upgraded server and rebuilt its marketing site with pricing, how-it-works, and tutorial pages, backed by Google Ads and email campaigns.

The Outcome

Michigan attorneys can work up a sentence in minutes and hand off a finished report. The same approach, an editable legal dataset behind a guided calculator, became the basis for Mokasoft’s U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Calculator in 2025.