Legal Matter Management Simplified, and How it differs from Case Management?

Legal Matter Management Simplified and How it differs from Case Management

Legal Matter Management can be defined as the process in which all legal matters and their related data, such as type of legal work, lawyers work on the case, budgets, and invoices, are gathered, tracked, and reported on by the legal department throughout the matter lifecycle. Think about a matter like a project, a way to categorise your expenses and better understand where your money is going.

Are Matter Management and Case Management the Same?

Matter management and case management are often used synonymously, but are the two really the same? Yes and no.

Matter Management vs Case Management

Case management is typically leveraged by lawyers who work on large-scale, document-intensive litigation. When handling these types of litigation, legal teams from several law firms must work together to manage an enormous volume of paper and electronic documents. A dedicated legal case management system can bring organisation to the process to better track and manage these documents.

Matter management, on the other hand, tends to be more comprehensive than case management and refers to the entire activities involved in managing every aspect of the legal practice, both internally and externally. As a result, matter management software is more robust, providing functionality beyond case management’s key document storage capabilities. It allows users to create and open a matter, assign lawyers and timekeepers to matters, and report on who worked on what matters and for how long, to name a few. This gives legal departments the key insights needed to help the business achieve its strategic objectives.

Legal Management System for Matters Management

Both case and matter management systems can be customised to work in law firms and corporate legal teams environments. Selecting a law practice system will ultimately depend on how much customisation is needed for your specific team. 

However, for in-house teams, adopting a legal operations platform for matter management is required to succeed in today’s data-driven landscape. A solution like Lexzur simplifies how in-house departments operate and complete their day-to-day tasks while promoting collaboration and efficiency. But even more, it brings consistency to how legal tracks the impact, complexity, practice area, matter attributes, documents, tasks, providers, and people related to internal and external matters. Plus, it gives you full visibility into the matter lifecycle and associated spend.

How to Make the Most Out of Matter Management Software

For in-house counsel and law firms legal teams, matter management software is the full package. If you want to take advantage of all it has to offer, use these key features.

Work smarter with Robust Document Management

Hunting down a document is frustrating. Spending hours combing through different file folders looking for a specific version of a particular file is downright unproductive.

With Lexzur’s Document Management Module, you can keep legal documents, agreements, notes, and emails organised by matter, indexed and searchable.  It is like a virtual file cabinet with a variety of cases in one place. For the sake of convenience, Lexzur is compliant with the security requirements of sensitive data protection and GDPR certified. It offers a secure way of sharing and storing documents of different types in one place.

Let’s say you have a dispute with a vendor regarding contract language for a certain time period. With traditional document storage, such as Google Drive™, you’d have to dig through several versions of a contract, then hunt down a specific clause. With Lexzur, you can quickly locate all documents associated with the matter at hand and do a quick search for keywords to find the clause in question. Plus, you can review past versions and audit trails to narrow down who made changes to the document and when.

Align with Finance

Often, cross-collaboration between legal and finance is difficult. But you can’t get much work done if finance doesn’t know what you’re spending money on or why. Lexzur Matter management software lets you dig into the details of your legal spending. Reports allow you to break down spending into categories, such as practice area and timekeeper level, making it easier for you and finance to analyse budget allocation. Plus, historical data helps you more accurately forecast future budget needs.

Automate Admin Work

Every day, your legal department deals with the back-and-forth between your team and outside counsel, processes countless documents, spends time on data entry, and handles many other highly manual administrative tasks. By leveraging robust matter management software, you can automate arduous admin work.

Automation can give your legal team the advantage of being able to service your clients and attract new business more efficiently. With law office automation and technology, you’re not taking away the human element of the practice. Rather, you spend less time on time-intensive yet menial tasks and more time in areas that require your skills and expertise.

Here are a few reasons why automation matters and how targeting routine law firm processes will benefit your organisation. Automation:

• Removes room for human error related to duplicate data entry.
• Creates a better client experience when processes they interact with directly are automated or self-service (such as filling out forms).
• Increases lawyers satisfaction because they can spend more time on billable work and other revenue-producing activities. 
• Improves communication and transparency between your law firm’s legal team and clients. 
• Decreases the overhead costs of staffing and other fees associated with a conventional law office. 
• Enables you to stay competitive on a smaller budget.

Book a Freel Legal Tech Consultation with our Legal Tech Experts 

Ready to streamline your legal matter work? Discuss your needs and goals with Lexzur experts by reaching out and scheduling a Free Legal Tech Consultation.