The terms Legal case management (LCM) or matter management refer to a subset of law practice management and cover a range of approaches and technologies used by law firms and courts to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case or matter more effectively. Generally, the terms refer to the sophisticated information management and workflow practices that are tailored to meet the legal field’s specific needs and requirements.
As attorneys and law firms compete for clients they are routinely challenged to deliver services at lower costs with greater efficiency, thus firms develop practice-specific processes and utilize contemporary technologies to assist in meeting such challenges. Law practice management processes and technologies include case and matter management, time and billing, litigation support, research, communication and collaboration, data mining and modeling, and data security, storage, and archive accessibility.
Case management software
Legal case or matter management software has two primary functions: it helps to better use, manage, consolidate, share, and protect information, and it tracks and shapes the business process. Because the most useful forms of such software can integrate data from multiple systems, departments, users, and business entities, its use can increase a firm’s business advantage.
Case or matter management systems having the capacity to push and pull data over the Internet, whether within the software itself or within an integrated software framework or environment became an industry standard with the advent of the Lexis and Westlaw legal research platforms.
Case management software is marketed to specific segments of the legal marketplace, with some products designed for small firms and others for large multinational firms, and a few claim to be scalable to all. Cost-containment and competition concerns facing small-to-mid-size firms that cannot afford a full-time IT staff often drive custom solutions incorporating multiple integrated products.
In-house legal departments
In-house legal teams (in the public and private sectors) have their own needs: generally these require less emphasis on billing and accounts (since clients tend to be internal), and even more on traceability, real-time integration and configurability. The need to improve productivity of the team and reduce costs to taxpayers, or the business, is often a key driver. Some in-house teams have reduced their external legal bills by using case management software to increase their capacity and bring case work in-house.
Case management in the U.S. federal courts
As electronic court systems continue to increase their online presence, many now require case filings to be accomplished electronically. Many legal software vendors’ products include the ability to take advantage of such electronic filing by pulling data from the case management product and pushing it into court filing systems.
e-Discovery systems
In litigation, the discovery process often results in enormous amounts of information that must be managed, and with the revision of the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2006 to include electronic means of discovery came a new subset of case management systems that incorporated those changes, often dubbed ‘electronic evidence’ or ‘e-discovery’ management systems. Since the new rules took effect, e-Discovery firms as outside service vendors have flourished.
Case management and the regulation of mediation in Australia
The term case management is also used to refer to systems in which court or tribunal officials assume closer administrative control over the litigation process than is traditionally associated with common law litigation. The Assisted Dispute Resolution program was introduced into the Federal Court in 1990 after a number of cases failed to reach resolutions having several directional hearings. In those cases the parties were not able to isolate the issues requiring determination. With the new program, judges can refer the parties to a court registrar for mediation. The following section was introduced into the Federal Court of Australia Act in 1991:
- Subject to the Rules of Court, the Court may, with the consent of the parties to proceedings in the Court, by order refer the proceedings, or any part of them or any matter arising out of them to a mediator or an arbitrator for mediation or arbitration as the case may be….
- In Australia, mediation as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) method is designed to avoid resorting to formal court-based adjudication and is now also being applied to criminal matters. Traditional theories of criminal justice view the matter as one between the offender and the state.
- It is not necessary to have the parties consent to the mediation process and a judge can direct the mediation. In this sense, case management is designed to identify and define issues in dispute and to reduce delays, costs and unnecessary pre-trial activities.
10 main features of legal case management system
Legal Workspace has lots of useful features to help you run your law practice smoothly & efficiently. Legal matter management, document management, key dates management, time recording, hourly rate billing, invoices and client ledgers are few examples. UK law firms are saving a lot of time each week by using Legal Workspace. Finally, they have more time to grow their business and make more money. The following is a list of 10 main features of Legal Workspace (A legal case management system).
Legal matter management
Manage legal matters more efficiently and access client’s entire file with one click. From a single screen, you can easily view all the client and matter related information including all documents, correspondence, file notes, attendance notes, contact details, key dates, case activities, time spent and financial data in one place. Legal workspace is a cloud based legal case management system that will allow you to access and manage all the information easily & smartly from anywhere at any time.
Document management
Legal Workspace has lots of useful features to help you run your law practice smoothly & efficiently. Legal matter management, document management, key dates management, time recording, hourly rate billing, invoices and client ledgers are few examples. UK law firms are saving a lot of time each week by using Legal Workspace. Finally, they have more time to grow their business and make more money. The following is a list of 10 main features of Legal Workspace (A legal case management system).
Key dates & deadlines
Important dates and deadlines management is extremely important for any business. Your team can easily see what is coming up and plan accordingly. Never miss an deadline with Legal Workspace’s key date management feature. This great feature easily tracks every key date and deadline coming up for each case / matter you have in our legal case management system.
Individual & team calendars
Know instantly what your day, week, and month ahead look like. Have full control over your schedule. Calendaring and scheduling features of legal case management system allow you to manage your meetings and share calendar with your colleagues. It has instant search option to immediately find a specific calendar event. You clients data and all other calendar data is saved securely in the cloud.
Workflow Automation
Workflows are important to define repeated processes and guide caseworkers through the process step-by-step. They give caseworkers information about pending and completed tasks related to each matter. Prioritise all the tasks, set deadlines and reminders to increase your work efficiency and productivity levels. Workflow feature of our legal case management system allows you to define processes easily for your team and actually get things done on time without missing any deadline.
Legal time recording
Legal Workspace time recording feature means effortless timekeeping for accurate legal billing. Time recording is an important feature for law firm productivity, ensuring lawyers capture all their billable time as they work. Our legal case management system is flexible to assist you to record time. Don’t miss a minute. Launch the timer and it will record time in the background, whether you’re reading emails, drafting letters, or answering phone calls. Legal Workspace gives you the power to quickly enter time using timer, bypassing the need to go through extra steps such as opening the matter.
Client accounting
A comprehensive client accounting feature of our legal case management system allows you maintain proper records of case fee, invoices, bills, credit notes, payments received, balance outstanding, disbursements incurred and unpaid disbursements. Keep track of each and every transaction matter by matter with detailed client ledger report. Financial reporting lets you see how your business is doing on a day to day basis.
Billing and invoicing
The faster your invoice goes out, the sooner you get paid. Issue your invoice as soon as open a new matter. Create an invoice in seconds by entering case number and amount and then you can download (PDF), print or email it directly to your clients. Invoices, credit notes, refunds, discounts, bad debts, reminders for overdue invoices, payments received, automatic VAT calculation for each item, custom VAT rate list, income reports, VAT reports, aged debtors reports all included in comprehensive invoicing module of our legal case management system.
Business & financial reports
A Comprehensive business reporting module of legal case management system give you access to real-time information such as the volume of pending legal work, case status, and outcomes. Reporting lets you see how your business is doing on a day to day basis. Reports generated by our system are easy to understand, and lets you make informed business decisions based on that information. All reports can be exported to PDF format for further analysis if needed.
Data security & backup
We use powerful, efficient and secure 100% UK based data centre to store your data. According to the hosting service provider, all of their servers are located in an ex-MOD bunker outside of London and the M25. It’s 25m underground and has 3m thick concrete walls and N+1 power and cooling. There’s 24/7 security and CCTV, a 2m barbed wire fence, ex-MOD/police staff, and comprehensive hardware & software firewalls.