Matter Management

Matters are the core of Lawzana Flow. Each matter represents a legal case, transaction, or engagement. This guide covers everything you need to know about managing matters.

Creating a Matter#

From Scratch#

1. Go to Matters in the sidebar
2. Click New matter
3. Fill in the details:
   • Matter Title (required) — the name of the case or matter
   • Client Name (required)
   • Client Email (optional)
   • Client Phone (optional)
   • Practice Area and Matter Type — select from the ones set up in Settings → Practice Areas
   • Description (optional) — a brief summary
   • Next deadline (optional) — what is due, the date and an optional time
4. The matter is created in your default stage (the first stage of the built-in templates)

Choose the responsible lawyer afterwards with Responsible in the matter header.

From a Lead#

1. Open a lead's detail page
2. Click Convert
3. Set the matter title, and optionally the practice area, matter type and Assign To — client details are carried over automatically

Views#

Lawzana Flow offers three ways to view your matters:

Board#

A visual pipeline where each column represents a stage. You can:

• Drag and drop matters between stages
• See the number of matters in each stage
• Quickly assess workload and progress

List#

A table showing all matters with columns for Matter, Client, Stage, Next deadline, Responsible, and Last activity.

Calendar#

Shows the deadlines of your matters by date. Lead reminders and appointments are on the Calendar page in the sidebar. Useful for tracking upcoming court dates, filings and meetings.

Matter Stages#

Stages represent the workflow steps for a matter. Your first set of stages is picked from the main practice area you chose at sign-up. General practice firms start with Intake, Discovery, Drafting, Negotiation and Closed. To switch, go to Settings → Matter Stages → Apply Template and pick one of these (applying a template replaces your current stages):

Litigation Template#

Transactional Template#

Family Law Template#

Matter Detail Page#

Click any matter to open its detail page. The header shows the stage, the responsible lawyer, tags and the next deadline, with buttons to Add deadline, Log time, Upload and Ask AI. The page has five tabs:

Overview#

The summary view showing:

• Next deadlines, with Mark as done
• Recent documents
• Latest activity and notes
• Description
• Client details, with links to the client's contact and, when the client has them, its billing details
• Unbilled time (owners and admins)
• Related matters

Documents#

Manage all files attached to this matter:

• Upload documents via drag-and-drop or file browser
• Organize files into folders and subfolders
• Open a document to summarize it, extract key facts, chat with it, run a playbook review, or find the people and companies it names
• Share documents with the client portal
• Drafts for this matter are listed here too
• Supported formats: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, email files (.eml, .msg), text files, and photos. See Documents for the full list.
• Max size: 25 MB per file

Deadlines#

Track court dates, filing deadlines, meetings and other key dates:

• Add a deadline with a type, title, date, optional time, priority, location, reminder and notes
• Priority levels: Low, Medium, High, Critical
• Status: Pending, Completed, Cancelled, Overdue
• Reminders: the chosen number of days before the date, the responsible lawyer gets a reminder email and a notification in the app. When no one is responsible (or they can't open the matter), an owner or admin who can open it gets them instead
• Deadline types are set up in Settings → Milestone Types
• Turn on Show milestones on a client's portal link to show them the matter's deadlines

Activity#

A chronological record of the matter, in three sections:

• Timeline and notes — notes, document uploads, stage changes, deadline updates and other team actions
• Matter Participants — the people and companies involved in the matter (client, opposing party, witness, expert, court, mediator, arbitrator, or other), picked from your contacts
• Conflicts — possible conflicts found for this matter, to clear, waive or decline

Participants are not the same as team access. To limit which team members can see a matter, use Restrict access or Manage access in the header's More actions menu (see Ethical Walls).

Billing#

Everything money-related for the matter:

• Time: log time or run a timer (see Time Tracking)
• Expenses: record disbursements to bill (see Expenses & Disbursements)
• Invoices: set the fee arrangement and create invoices from unbilled time and expenses (see Invoicing)
• Trust: the matter's trust balance and entries, visible to owners and admins (see Trust Accounting)
• Billing details: who the matter's invoices are addressed to and the billing email (shown here, edited on the client's contact page), and the matter's currency (see Client Accounts)

Ask AI#

Click Ask AI in the header to open the AI assistant in a side panel. Ask questions about the matter's documents, deadlines and notes at once — useful for cross-document analysis and case-wide questions.

Tags and Practice Areas#

• Practice Areas — Categorize matters by legal specialty (e.g., Corporate, Family Law, Litigation) and matter type. Configure in Settings → Practice Areas.
• Tags — Add custom labels for additional organization. Tags are color-coded and you can filter by them. Create tags in Settings → Tags.

Filtering and Search#

On the matters page, click Filters to:

• Filter by stage, assigned team member (or unassigned), client name, matter title, created date (after or before), and tags
• Sort by created date, last updated, title, client name, or next deadline, ascending or descending
• Save a filter combination, pin it to the toolbar, or set it as your default

Use the command palette (⌘K / Ctrl+K) for instant search across all matters.

Ethical Walls#

If your organization uses ethical walls, restricted matters display:

• A restriction badge on the matter header (Ethical Wall, Confidential, or Limited Access)
• Team members without access don't see the matter in lists or search, and opening a link to it shows an Access Denied page

See Ethical Walls for details.