Legal matter management or matter management refers to activities involved in managing all aspects of the corporate legal practice ("matters"). Matter management is distinguished from case management, in that case management is generally considered to refer to law firm related activities ("cases"). Matter management software systems serve a variety of functions including conflict and ethics control, accurate matter opening, day-to-day matter work, business intelligence, and marketing. This includes the tracking of such items as the attorneys and other workers on the case, type of legal work, industry of the client, witnesses, judges, Courts, opposing counsel, issues, documents, budgets and invoices associated with each particular legal matter.
Corporations can use matter legal matter management software and systems to manage both their in-house counsel staffs as well as their outside counsel law firms and non-law firm legal service providers who work on legal matters on the corporation's behalf (i.e., expert witnesses, court reporters, copy services, etc.). Law firms might use matter management to organize information about documents and email, time worked or billed, people inside and outside the firm associated with case, deadlines and dockets, and much more.
Matter management systems can provide excellent communication and collaboration platforms to organize and distribute information, although new web-based collaboration tools are beginning to reduce the need for matter management systems as collaboration tools. Matter-centric collaboration tools may be the next step.
As these systems entail the processing and storage of confidential corporate and insurance carrier financial data, sensitive claims information, and privileged legal matter data, major considerations in the deployment of these systems are: availability of matter-level security, ability to handle ethical walls, the level of customization the software offers, whether the software can be installed "behind corporate security and firewalls" or if the software is only hosted as an Internet-based ASP application and whether or not the deployment methodology meets Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA security and audit compliance mandates.
Legal project management is a form of matter management that leverages the standards and practices of professional project management to more effectively manage legal matters or specific phases of a legal matter (e.g., legal-discovery projects).
An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in contrast to public networks, such as the Internet, but uses most of the same technology based on the Internet protocol suite.
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
A document management system (DMS) is a system used to receive, track, manage and store documents and reduce paper. Most are capable of keeping a record of the various versions created and modified by different users. In the case of the management of digital documents such systems are based on computer programs. The term has some overlap with the concepts of content management systems. It is often viewed as a component of enterprise content management (ECM) systems and related to digital asset management, document imaging, workflow systems and records management systems.
An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing also attempts to ensure that the books of accounts are properly maintained by the concern as required by law. Auditors consider the propositions before them, obtain evidence, and evaluate the propositions in their auditing report.
Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statutes, administrative codes, newspaper and magazine articles, public records, law journals, law reviews, treatises, legal forms and other information resources.
Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the management of information in an organization throughout its life cycle, from the time of creation or receipt to its eventual disposition. This includes identifying, classifying, storing, securing, retrieving, tracking and destroying or permanently preserving records. The ISO 15489-1: 2001 standard defines records management as "[the] field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records".
Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, analog or digital. They also include one methods for importing content to bring manage new items, and several presentation methods to make items available for use. Although ECM content may be protected by digital rights management (DRM), it is not required. ECM is distinguished from general content management by its cognizance of the processes and procedures of the enterprise for which it is created.
Microsoft Servers is a discontinued brand that encompasses Microsoft software products for server computers. This includes the Windows Server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as products targeted at the wider business market. Microsoft has since replaced this brand with Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Windows 365.
Electronic discovery refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format. Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to management:
Law practice management software is software designed to manage a law firm's case and client records, billing and bookkeeping, schedules and appointments, deadlines, computer files and to facilitate any compliance requirements such as with document retention policies, courts' electronic filing systems and, in the UK, the Solicitors' Accounts Rules as defined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage varies substantially among organizations.
The terms legal case management (LCM), matter management or legal project 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.
An intranet portal is the gateway that unifies access to enterprise information and applications on an intranet. It is a tool that helps a company manage its data, applications, and information more easily through personalized views. Some portal solutions are able to integrate legacy applications, objects from other portals, and handle thousands of user requests. In a corporate enterprise environment, it is also known as an enterprise portal.
Information Discovery is a term used in the legal and corporate industry which refers to the steps involved in distilling a corporation’s data corpus down to the most pertinent evidence pertaining to a court-related matter or compliance directive. The major information discovery steps include: managing the entire data collection in a manner to identify all pertinent evidence associated with the matter, targeting that information for collection, processing and identification (culling) of relevant data, and processing for document hosting and legal document/information review.
Collaborative workflow is the convergence of social software with service management (workflow) software. As the definition implies, collaborative workflow is derived from both workflow software and social software such as chat, instant messaging, and document collaboration.
Catalyst Repository Systems is a privately held company based in Denver, Colorado, USA, which develops, hosts and supports cloud-based software for the management of electronic legal discovery. Founded in 2000, the company’s main product is Insight Discovery. Catalyst has offices and data centers throughout the United States and an office and data center in Tokyo, Japan.
Legal technology, also known as Legal Tech, refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services and support the legal industry. Legal Tech companies are often startups founded with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative legal market.
Enterprise legal management (ELM) is a practice management strategy of corporate legal departments, insurance claims departments, and government legal and contract management departments.
Fund governance refers to a system of checks and balances and work performed by the governing body (board) of an investment fund to ensure that the fund is operated not only in accordance with law, but also in the best interests of the fund and its investors. The objective of fund governance is to uphold the regulatory principles commonly known as the four pillars of investor protection that are typically promulgated through the investment fund regulation applicable in the jurisdiction of the fund. These principles vary by jurisdiction and in the US, the 1940 Act generally ensure that: (i) The investment fund will be managed in accordance with the fund's investment objectives, (ii) The assets of the investment fund will be kept safe, (iii) When investors redeem they will get their pro rata share of the investment fund's assets, (iv) The investment fund will be managed for the benefit of the fund's shareholders and not its service providers.
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