Opening a matter
New case starts a four-step intake. It is saved as a draft the moment you continue past step 1, and only you can see your own drafts — they appear on the case list under Your unfinished intakes. A draft is a lead, not a case.
Only a licensed attorney or the firm owner can take a matter on.
Step 1 — The matter
Nothing here is checked yet.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Internal number | Yours, assigned now. Unique within the firm — a second matter cannot take the same string. |
| Court number | Stays empty until a suit is filed. A case is real before a court knows about it. |
| Case title | How the matter reads everywhere in the product. |
| Matter type | The types your firm takes are listed first; every other type is below them. |
| Jurisdiction | |
| Court | |
| Phase | Where the matter actually stands today, not where it starts on paper. |
Step 2 — Parties and conflicts
Covered in full on Parties and conflicts. In short: the conflict check has nothing to search until at least the client is attached, and it re-runs every time a party is added or removed.
Step 3 — Deadline and lead
The two fields the database will not let an active matter go without.
Statute deadline — the final date by which the firm must file. No override, no TBD. A missed statute of limitations kills the claim permanently.
Lead attorney — only members holding a bar number appear in this list. The same licence is what grants the right to approve an AI run later.
Not in the list yourself? If your bar number is not on file, record it and the state that issued it on Your account and you will be taken straight back to this step. If you are not an attorney or firm owner, you cannot lead a matter at all — ask an attorney to take it on.
Step 4 — Review and activate
The review step shows everything you entered, who will be able to open the matter, the retention it inherits from the firm profile, and exactly what pressing Activate writes:
The row flips to active
With your id on it permanently as the creator. That does not change if you later leave the matter, or the firm.
The parties and their roles are kept
A party the firm already knows keeps its history; a new one starts its own.
The conflict result and your reason are kept
Kept whether it came back clear or not, so the decision to proceed is as recoverable as the decision not to.
The access rows are computed
Two, to begin with — you and the lead. Every later grant, wall or role change recomputes them rather than being read on the fly at request time.
The three blockers
A draft cannot go active until all three are satisfied. The review step tracks them as Still outstanding.
- A statute deadline.
- A lead attorney.
- A cleared conflict check — run, and either clear or cleared in writing by an attorney.
The first two are constraints on the row itself: an active matter without them simply fails to save, whatever the screen does. The third is the product’s own — a firm can be made to record a decision, and cannot be made to make a good one.
Who can open it once it is live
You — as creator: write, and manage the team.
The lead — approve, release, and manage the team.
Everyone else at the firm — no access row, so no trace. Not in counts, not in search.
Being firm owner is not access to a matter. It is a ceiling on what you could do once somebody puts you on one.
Discarding a draft
Discard draft on the review step removes it. Nothing was ever live, so nothing is retained.