What is Modern Matter Management?

If your Legal Department is not in triage mode, you may be looking at your operations to ensure you have the right legal matter management software in place to help create and retain a productive and functional team.

“Legal Matter management” in some form or another, has existed as long as lawyers have walked the Earth. It has undertaken a slow evolution, from parchment to file folders to spreadsheets to legal software. (And let’s be honest, there are still plenty of legal teams getting by on file folders and spreadsheets).

Analog or digital, traditional matter management is based on four primary steps of a legal project, as outlined by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium:

Intake > Planning > Execution > Review

As milestones, these four steps are critical. But it’s what lies between them – and the interplay among them – that can truly transform in-house Legal Department service, performance, results, and morale.

If traditional legal matter management resembled a conveyer belt, modern matter management is an ecosystem, tying together the steps in a project’s life cycle with information and communication:

• How can 'Intake' expedite Execution?
• How can 'Review' seamlessly feed future Planning?
• How can business clients stay updated automatically?

What is modern matter management?

Modern matter management refers to a dynamic system that centralizes information into one single source of truth - and one that is constantly learning.

What are some of the signs you need a modern matter management software?

• You're not sure what each member of your legal team is working on at any point in time
• Every member of your legal team has their own personal project management system
• Your legal matter list reside in various places/forms, such as legal pads, spreadsheets, email folders
• You waste hours in team meetings reciting to-do lists
• You are drowning in work and so much of it seems repetitive
• You worry about missed deadlines and neglected matters
• Other business units can forecast performance and hiring needs and trends, but your Legal Department can't
• You're over budget. Again
• Business clients never know what is going on with their legal requests
• You use a lot of legal software, but it's not making your life easier
• You have a disconnected stack of siloed apps and legal tools
• Your C-suite don't understand your value

Our modern matter management guide is designed to help in-house Legal Departments of one to 1,000 understand their options for modern matter management.

In our modern matter management guide, you will learn:

• Signs you need a modern matter management system for your in-house legal department
• Key features to evaluate (and a checklist to help) assess your needs and evaluate matter management software options
• How to implement modern matter management in your team
• How to evaluate ROI – and keep improving

Transform your legal team's service, performance, results, and morale - download our modern matter management eBook now to get started.