If you work in an in-house legal department, the terms “case management” and “matter management” might seem familiar. But here’s the thing: they actually serve very different purposes, especially for in-house teams.
In the legal world, having the right tools in place can make all the difference. Whether you’re handling contracts, giving compliance advice, or managing outside counsel, the way you organize and track your legal work matters. That’s why understanding the difference between case management and matter management is more about working smarter.
In this blog, we’ll break it all down and provide you with a clear explanation of what each management tool does, how they differ, and why choosing the right one can improve your legal team’s efficiency.
Understanding Case Management for In-House Legal Teams
Case management focuses on the lifecycle of individual legal cases. The tool is designed to help law firms or litigation teams in centralizing case management, accurately tracking billable hours, streamlining legal billing and payments, and managing trust accounts and operating accounts.
Key Features of Case Management
Here are some key features of a case management system:
- Automate time tracking and billing
- Helps in staying compliant with invoices and integrated payment options
- Industry-ready trust ledgers alongside operating accounts
What is Matter Management, and How Does it Help In-House Legal Teams
Matter management is like the command center of your in-house legal department. It’s not just about handling lawsuits; it’s about tracking every moving part of your legal operations. That includes matters, compliance issues, internal legal advice, outside counsel work, deadlines, budgets, and documents, all in one place.
Instead of juggling between emails and Excel sheets, matter management brings everything together in one place. It helps you see what’s going on, who’s doing what, and where things stand, without the mess.
Key Features of Matter Management
Matter management is the bigger picture compared to case management; it’s designed to cater to the needs of in-house teams, law firms, corporate legal departments, and more. The system can be customized as per the needs of the team. Here are some of its important features:
- Automate and customize matter workflow based on matter, practice area, and in a way that your team manages matters
- Collaborate with external counsel and vendors through co-counsel and client portal to securely share documents and stay updated
- Access a global office with a centralized platform with multilocation support
- And get detailed insights with customized reports and dashboards on co-counsel performance, budget, internal team performance, compliance, and more
Are Matter Management and Case Management the Same?
It is important to note that matter management and case management are related concepts, but are not the same. Legal professionals must comprehend the differences between them.
Common Misconceptions
The terms “matter” and “case” are rather close in meaning and are often employed interchangeably when referring to legal practice. However, matter management is a more extensive concept that involves the coordination of several cases and their interactions, whereas case management is more detailed, concerning particular cases.
Relationship Between the Two
Matter management can be described as the framework within which all cases exist in a law firm. They provide an overview of the practices and processes that constitute case management within the firm.
Let’s have a look at what legal matter management and legal case management software is!!!
Legal Matter Management Software
Legal Matter Management Software is typically more comprehensive, offering features that facilitate:
- Real-time Insights: Performance review and monitoring of financial activity in several cases.
- Collaboration Tools: Facilitating collaboration between internal teams and external providers.
- Multilocation Access: The software allows in-house teams to unify global offices in one platform
- AI-Powered Legal Drafting and Legal Research: The in-house legal teams can draft any legal document in seconds with AI-powered speed and accuracy in multiple languages to help them easily collaborate globally
Legal Case Management Software
Conversely, legal case management software is more focused on the specific needs of individual cases. It provides:
- Document Organization: Effective systems for tracking case files and discovery documents.
- Client Collaboration: The software helps in passing information to the clients and in the management of cases.
- Managing trust and operating accounts: IOLTA-ready trust ledgers alongside operating accounts
- Generate Invoice: Create invoices that are compliant with LEDES and integrate payment options
- Tag cases: Custom fields, tags, workflow configuration, and more
Difference Between Legal Matter Management and Case Management Software
| Aspect | Case Management | Matter Management |
| Purpose | Designed to manage and organize individual legal cases, often used by law firms dealing with litigation or specific projects. | Provides a comprehensive platform to manage all aspects of legal matters, including transactions, compliance, and contracts, typically used by corporate legal departments |
| Scope | Focuses on specific cases, offering tools for handling the case lifecycle from intake to closure. | Encompasses a wider range of activities, including budgeting, document management, analytics, and overall legal matter management. |
| Main Features | – Document organization and retrieval – Deadline tracking with calendar integration – Task and workflow management – Client communication and portal access | Advanced analytics and reporting for decision-making – Budgeting and financial management, including billing – Contract lifecycle management – Compliance tracking and regulatory oversight – Collaboration tools for internal and external stakeholders |
| Best For | Law firms that handle multiple individual cases, such as litigation, personal injury, or family law, require detailed tracking of case activities and documents. | Corporate legal departments or larger law firms managing a diverse portfolio of legal matters, including mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, and compliance issues. |
| Selection Tips | – Consider if your primary need is detailed case tracking and organization. – Ideal for practices with a high volume of similar cases that require efficient document and deadline management. | – Consider if you need a more comprehensive system to manage diverse legal tasks. – Ideal for managing budgets, contracts, and compliance across different types of legal matters. |
It is important to note that matter management and case management are related concepts, but are not the same. Legal professionals must comprehend the differences between them. Here are some key differences mentioned below:
Purpose
- Case management is designed to manage and organize individual legal cases, often used by law firms dealing with litigation or specific projects.
- While matter management provides a comprehensive platform to manage all aspects of legal matters, including transactions, compliance, and contracts, typically used by corporate legal departments
Scope
- Case management focuses on specific cases, offering tools for handling the case lifecycle from intake, billing, payments, to client portals and more
- Encompasses a wider range of activities, including budgeting, document management, analytics, AI legal document generation and legal research, e-signature, e-discovery, co-counsel portal, and overall legal matter management.
Main Features
Case management has features such as:
- Managing trust and operating accounts
- Client and contact management
- Time tracking and billing
- Case notes and history logs
- Email and communication records
Whereas matter management has features such as:
- Centralized matter dashboard and overview
- Document repository
- Task assignment and workflow automation
- e-signature integration
- Reporting and analytics
- Compliance and regulatory tracking
- Matter intake and conflict checking
- External counsel collaboration portal
- Multilingual and multilocation support
How Right Matter Management Software Can Boost the Productivity of In-House Legal Teams
With the right matter management software like Mattersuite, legal teams can work 2x faster and with more accuracy and efficiency.
The software helps legal teams save hours by automating tasks like workflow management, drafting legal documents, conducting legal research, and collaborating with external counsel in real-time with secure so-counsel portals.
Here are some key benefits of matter management software:
- Legal matter management software helps in-house legal teams streamline their matter management process.
- It helps in creating, generating, editing, and storing documents all within one platform.
- The software helps in tracking deadlines, important dates, matter-related tasks, and events.
- It can generate reports to provide you with detailed insights about your matter process.
- The software helps in managing the financial aspect of your team, setting a budget, keeping track of outside counsel expenses, generating financial reports, and more.
- It helps in-house teams in generating legal documents in seconds and conducting legal research by using AI with multilingual support.
- Matter management software offers multi-location support to in-house teams working globally, so they can centralize global offices on one platform
Conclusion: How to Select the Right Technology for In-House Legal Teams
Case Management Software and Matter Management Software are two systems that address different requirements within the legal field. The Case Management Software is perfect for law firms that work case by case and require software for case management, including the documents, deadlines, tasks, and case clients. Overall, it is less complex and more oriented to certain aspects of the case.
However, Matter Management Software is a more elaborate solution best suited for corporate legal departments or large law firms. It spans a broad area of processes, including analytics, budgeting and billing, contracting, and compliance monitoring.
This software is less simple, but it provides numerous features for various legal activities and general legal processes.
Thus, when selecting the most suitable software, legal firms and departments should analyze their requirements, type of legal activity, and whether they need sophisticated case management or matter management systems.
