Matter management

How a law firm or legal team organises each case or piece of legal work - a 'matter' - with its documents, deadlines, people, time and billing kept together.

For example, when a firm opens a new matter for a property purchase, matter management keeps the contract drafts, the key dates, the lawyers working on it, the time recorded and the client updates in one record, so anyone on the team can pick it up.

Why it matters to your firm: lawyers' time is the business, and every minute spent hunting for a document or rebuilding a client update is a minute not spent on legal work. Most firms have a matter system; the hours are lost in what sits outside it. Start with an ops audit to find them.