What is Matter Management?

Did you know that about 9 out of 10 of legal professionals have trouble locating contracts, and nearly 49% lack a proper system for storing them? Without an effective way to organize, track, and resolve legal matters, locating relevant information and staying on top of priorities can be challenging.

That’s why establishing efficient matter management should be a top priority for growing General Counsels (GCs) and Chief Legal Officers (CLOs).  

What is Matter Management?

Matter management can refer to both a process and a tool, each playing a distinct role in how in-house legal teams organize their work.

• As a Process: Matter management is the practice of organizing, tracking, and resolving legal matters. It involves creating workflows, maintaining records, and ensuring tasks are completed on time. This process helps legal professionals stay on top of their responsibilities, maintain accountability, and deliver results.

• As a Tool: Matter management tools take this process a step further by providing software solutions to streamline and automate tasks. Matter management software acts as a centralized hub, offering features like automated intake and triage, document storage, notifications, and real-time tracking. They empower legal teams to handle matters more efficiently, with fewer manual steps and greater visibility.

Common Matter Management Use Cases:

1. Contract Reviews

Tracking the status of multiple contracts, ensuring deadlines are met and the right stakeholders approve them before execution. Matter management ensures all relevant documents, emails, and tasks are organized in one place.

2. Internal Disputes

Handling an HR-related matter, such as a workplace grievance, by documenting the issue, tracking investigation progress, and ensuring legal risks are managed appropriately.

3. Compliance Investigations

When facing a compliance issue, matter management helps the legal team collect and analyze information, assign tasks to investigate the issue, and maintain an audit trail for regulators.

4. Litigation Cases

For ongoing lawsuits, matter management keeps case details like court dates, evidence, and correspondence accessible. It also tracks key deadlines like filing dates, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Types of Matter Management

Matter management typically falls into two categories: traditional methods and modern software solutions.

Traditional Approaches

Legal teams have historically used spreadsheets, email chains, or paper files to manage matters. While these methods can work for smaller organizations, they pose key challenges for in-house legal teams, leading to inefficiencies, missed deadlines, and disorganization as workloads grow. For example, using a spreadsheet to manage a contract review may require manually updating each step, giving way for the risk of outdated information or overlooked tasks.

Modern Software Solutions

Modern tools, like matter management software, streamline the process of managing matters by centralizing documents, deadlines, and communications into one platform. Features like AI-powered legal intake and triage, automated matter tracking, customizable dashboards, and analytics and reporting provide real-time visibility into workloads and reduce manual effort. These solutions help legal teams improve efficiency and scale operations effectively.

Key Features of a Matter Management System

Web-based systems, such as Checkbox, offer powerful matter management features that help legal teams stay organized and efficient. Here are some of the key capabilities:

• Customizable Workflows: Tailor processes to fit unique needs and preferences.

• Integration Capabilities: Easily connect the system with tools like email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, DocuSign, and more, for seamless intake, triage, and tracking.

• Centralized Hub: Store and manage all documents, communications, and case details in one easily accessible location.

• Automated Alerts and Notifications: Leverage reminders and alerts to ensure deadlines and approvals are completed within appropriate timeframes.

• Analytics and Reporting: Generate reports and view metrics to gain insights into team performance and workload trends.

The Future of Matter Management

Where is matter management heading? Companies of high growth in this rapidly evolving economy are shifting their focus to smarter, more strategic matter management operations. And AI-driven insights and predictive analytics are at the forefront of transforming how teams manage workloads.

Key trends include:

• AI-Powered Automation: Using AI-powered software to streamline tasks like intake, triage, reporting, and matter tracking.

• Predictive Analytics: Leveraging data and metrics to anticipate outcomes and make proactive decisions to minimize risks and reduce costs.

• Legal Front Doors: Using a centralized ticketing platform to automatically route legal requests and simplify tracking for GCs and CLOs.

• Scalability and Collaboration: Investing in high ROI tools that grow with the broader organization and enhance cross-functional alignment.

These advancements make matter management systems an essential tool for scaling impact and demonstrating the strategic value of legal teams.

Prioritizing matter management is an important endeavor for in-house legal teams looking to stay organized, efficient, and impactful. Whether managing contracts, litigation, or compliance investigations, a structured approach ensures efficient processes and full visibility.

Platforms like Checkbox make this process easier by centralizing workflows, automating tasks, and providing actionable insights. With this scalable matter management software in place, legal teams can deliver greater output with less input.

Want to learn more about how Checkbox’s in-house legal software can improve matter management?  

Book a call with one of our technology consultants or check out Checkbox’s interactive demo to see how we can support your team.