Legal
The matter file, and the bundle nobody wants to build.
For firms where the file has grown across email, a document drive, a practice management system and a physical folder, and where somebody eventually has to put it in order for a court.
The document that ruins the week
Years of correspondence, wanted in chronological order, by Friday.
The matter is live, the file is large, and the bundle has to be complete, paginated and indexed. Traditionally a junior spends days on it, and the firm writes off most of that time.
The underlying problem is not the bundle. It is that the matter file was never one thing: it is a folder, a drive, four mailboxes and a set of attachments that were never saved anywhere.
Where the time goes
Three things that are true of almost every practice we see.
The file lives in mailboxes
The single most common gap. Attachments arrive, get actioned, and are never filed to the matter, so the record is only complete in one person's inbox.
Nobody is sure which version is current
Draft agreements multiply. Without a version history, deciding which one was actually sent takes longer than reading it.
Bundling is manual and expensive
Assembling, ordering, indexing and paginating is done by hand, by the most junior person available, under time pressure.
What changes
One matter file, assembled as you go rather than at the end.
We index by matter, and we capture correspondence into the matter as it arrives, including attachments, so that the file is complete continuously instead of being reconstructed under deadline.
When a bundle is needed, the material is already in order, dated, and indexed. What is left is the judgement about what goes in, which is a lawyer's job and stays one.
- One structured file per matter, correspondence included.
- Chronological ordering and an index generated from what is filed.
- Version history on drafts, so which one went out is a fact rather than a memory.
- Access by matter and by role, with a record of who opened what.
The regulator in the room
Confidentiality, and the duty to produce.
Two obligations pull in opposite directions in a law firm, and document control is where they meet.
Confidentiality means access has to be restricted, and it has to be restricted in a way you could describe to a client or to the Legal Practice Council: by matter, by role, and with a record of who opened what.
The duty to produce means that when a file is called for, the answer cannot be that it is spread across four mailboxes. Being able to produce the complete file, in order, with its history, is the point of the exercise.
POPIA sits over both, and a firm holds a great deal of personal information about people who are not its clients: the other side, witnesses, third parties named in correspondence.
How long you keep a closed matter, and when it may be destroyed, is your decision under your own rules and your attorney's advice. We make the record complete and its history visible. We do not automate destruction.
Questions we get asked
Straight answers.
Does this replace our practice management system?
No. Practice management holds the matter, the time and the billing. We hold the documents and make the file complete, including the correspondence that practice management was never going to capture.
Can you capture email into the matter automatically?
We capture from mailboxes and file to the matter using rules we agree with you, and your controller handles the exceptions rather than leaving them to guesswork. Where a rule cannot decide, a person does.
Who assembles the bundle?
Your controller assembles and indexes it from the filed material. Deciding what belongs in it remains with the attorney on the matter, and we would be worried about any supplier who offered otherwise.
The partnership
Provelis is delivered by Zuzani Group and runs on the SmartImage platform. Zuzani contracts the service, SmartImage licenses the software, and you deal with one team.
Start here
Find out what you actually hold.
Two weeks, a fixed price, and three things you keep: a register of your documents, a list of what you cannot produce, and a costed plan to put it right.
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