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Where Do We Go From Here?

By Carl Sutherland
July 02, 2004

The increasingly familiar category of “Matter Management” is a niche area in the world of legal technology that has attracted more interest from in-house legal departments and their outside law firms in recent years. It's a category with humble beginnings and dynamic changes ' both in terms of the companies that develop the software and in terms of the features enjoyed by the users.

This article takes a brief look at the origins and evolution of matter management technology, and then offer a provocative assessment of what the future holds. Ultimately, it challenges members of the legal technology community to think about what will become more important: fancy technology or software that's easy to use?

Matter Management Origins

The category of matter management software for in-house legal departments has its roots in the late-1980s and early-1990s. The stories behind each software developer's entry into the marketplace are similar ' every company in the space started with the development of a custom system for a specific customer that had a need for a corporate legal information management system. After completing their respective projects, the developers used those initial blueprints to create their own commercial software products for the in-house legal market.

In its early days, matter management software was basically used to track litigation and other legal expenses. As corporate legal departments took on larger roles in the 1990s, and in-house counsel became more technologically sophisticated, new features were added to the systems in order to meet the rapidly growing needs. Most of these features were indeed for back-office support (eg, accounting), but front-office uses (eg, case tracking) also started becoming more advanced.

Matter Management Evolution

As matter management systems began to have more importance in the corporate legal marketplace, the architecture and design of the various systems in the market began to evolve. One important aspect of this evolution involved the gradual division of the functionality of the systems into two major areas of use: 1) “Substantive” applications, which include the tracking and routing of legal matters ' and all communications associated with each matter – throughout the department; and 2) “Cost” applications, which include the various reporting tools and metrics that enable corporate legal professionals to analyze their department performance and extract important lessons.

Along the way, the technology behind matter management systems was built around the challenge of addressing the immediate tasks of customers ' what could we do to make our product better? The result of this approach was a significant expansion of the capabilities of matter management software to include the management of legal contracts, corporate M&A activity, real estate transactions, labor matters and intellectual property considerations.

However, an unintended consequence of this technology-driven evolution was that the ultimate needs of users ' to have access to tools that help them perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently ' seemed to be relegated to a place of lesser importance. A perfect example of this was LawPack, the dominant product in the corporate matter management space for most of the late-1990s and early-2000s. LawPack clearly set the standard for back-office features and the product developers made an enormous contribution to the legal technology marketplace, but it was also known for the difficulty experienced by end-users trying to operate the system.

With this evolution in mind, matter management developers have more recently begun building the technology behind their products by looking at the needs and objectives of customers ' what are our customers trying to do and how can our product help them accomplish those goals? This may be an important tipping point in the history of the category.

The Future of Matter Management

So, where do we go from here? No one can know for sure, but here are some provocative thoughts to ponder.

For starters, technology will now become a means for creation of tools that maximize the performance of users. For example, look for developers to give their users a “lifestyle choice” by inviting each individual user to decide for him/herself how they wish to interact with their system (eg, user interface, platform, etc.). In this sense, software will become more human to aid users in a way that ultimately improves their job performance.

Second, matter management software will become the operating system of the in-house legal department. Look for developers to continue building their software in a way that allows them to serve as a uniform system for looking across legal matters pending throughout the entire organization. Matter management systems will provide the infrastructure to facilitate the integration of all major applications used by the legal department ' such as document management systems, e-billing systems, and even patent and trademark systems ' so that all of the department's data will be visible from one place. With this breakthrough, users will be able to more effectively manage individual legal matters, more quickly respond to specific inquiries and more easily produce reports for internal or external audiences.

Finally, where we're headed in the future is to a place in which technology will actually become less important. That's right, technology is about to recede into the background in this category that has evolved with a heavy reliance on the latest and greatest technological functions. In its place, usability and inter-operability – how easy the system is for people to use and how easy it is for the system to operate with other information systems ' will surface as the more important considerations in the future.

In the matter management space, it's no longer a race to see whose bells and whistles make the most noise. The key will now be delivering performance tools that help customers do their jobs better and faster.



Carl Sutherland [email protected]

The increasingly familiar category of “Matter Management” is a niche area in the world of legal technology that has attracted more interest from in-house legal departments and their outside law firms in recent years. It's a category with humble beginnings and dynamic changes ' both in terms of the companies that develop the software and in terms of the features enjoyed by the users.

This article takes a brief look at the origins and evolution of matter management technology, and then offer a provocative assessment of what the future holds. Ultimately, it challenges members of the legal technology community to think about what will become more important: fancy technology or software that's easy to use?

Matter Management Origins

The category of matter management software for in-house legal departments has its roots in the late-1980s and early-1990s. The stories behind each software developer's entry into the marketplace are similar ' every company in the space started with the development of a custom system for a specific customer that had a need for a corporate legal information management system. After completing their respective projects, the developers used those initial blueprints to create their own commercial software products for the in-house legal market.

In its early days, matter management software was basically used to track litigation and other legal expenses. As corporate legal departments took on larger roles in the 1990s, and in-house counsel became more technologically sophisticated, new features were added to the systems in order to meet the rapidly growing needs. Most of these features were indeed for back-office support (eg, accounting), but front-office uses (eg, case tracking) also started becoming more advanced.

Matter Management Evolution

As matter management systems began to have more importance in the corporate legal marketplace, the architecture and design of the various systems in the market began to evolve. One important aspect of this evolution involved the gradual division of the functionality of the systems into two major areas of use: 1) “Substantive” applications, which include the tracking and routing of legal matters ' and all communications associated with each matter – throughout the department; and 2) “Cost” applications, which include the various reporting tools and metrics that enable corporate legal professionals to analyze their department performance and extract important lessons.

Along the way, the technology behind matter management systems was built around the challenge of addressing the immediate tasks of customers ' what could we do to make our product better? The result of this approach was a significant expansion of the capabilities of matter management software to include the management of legal contracts, corporate M&A activity, real estate transactions, labor matters and intellectual property considerations.

However, an unintended consequence of this technology-driven evolution was that the ultimate needs of users ' to have access to tools that help them perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently ' seemed to be relegated to a place of lesser importance. A perfect example of this was LawPack, the dominant product in the corporate matter management space for most of the late-1990s and early-2000s. LawPack clearly set the standard for back-office features and the product developers made an enormous contribution to the legal technology marketplace, but it was also known for the difficulty experienced by end-users trying to operate the system.

With this evolution in mind, matter management developers have more recently begun building the technology behind their products by looking at the needs and objectives of customers ' what are our customers trying to do and how can our product help them accomplish those goals? This may be an important tipping point in the history of the category.

The Future of Matter Management

So, where do we go from here? No one can know for sure, but here are some provocative thoughts to ponder.

For starters, technology will now become a means for creation of tools that maximize the performance of users. For example, look for developers to give their users a “lifestyle choice” by inviting each individual user to decide for him/herself how they wish to interact with their system (eg, user interface, platform, etc.). In this sense, software will become more human to aid users in a way that ultimately improves their job performance.

Second, matter management software will become the operating system of the in-house legal department. Look for developers to continue building their software in a way that allows them to serve as a uniform system for looking across legal matters pending throughout the entire organization. Matter management systems will provide the infrastructure to facilitate the integration of all major applications used by the legal department ' such as document management systems, e-billing systems, and even patent and trademark systems ' so that all of the department's data will be visible from one place. With this breakthrough, users will be able to more effectively manage individual legal matters, more quickly respond to specific inquiries and more easily produce reports for internal or external audiences.

Finally, where we're headed in the future is to a place in which technology will actually become less important. That's right, technology is about to recede into the background in this category that has evolved with a heavy reliance on the latest and greatest technological functions. In its place, usability and inter-operability – how easy the system is for people to use and how easy it is for the system to operate with other information systems ' will surface as the more important considerations in the future.

In the matter management space, it's no longer a race to see whose bells and whistles make the most noise. The key will now be delivering performance tools that help customers do their jobs better and faster.



Carl Sutherland [email protected]
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