A CRM for a law firm starts with the client

Most legal software organises itself around the matter, because the matter is where the time, the money and the documents live. That design serves the work well. It also produces a firm that knows its matters intimately and its clients barely at all. A partner can recite the history of matter 4521 and cannot say how many files the same client has brought in four years. The gap is not a reporting problem. The firm has nowhere that holds a client as a relationship rather than as a name on eleven separate files.

The client and the matter answer different questions

A matter answers what is happening in this dispute, this sale, this estate. A client answers a longer question: what this person has instructed the firm on over years, who referred them, and whether anything sits outstanding. Diract CRM holds the client as a contact with every matter linked to it, so the second question gets a screen of its own. A developer with eleven matters across four years is one relationship. A firm treating each file as a fresh start behaves like a stranger to somebody who has paid it for four years. Opening that client in Diract CRM shows the matters, the people, the referral source and the money position together.

The people around a matter are contacts too

The other side's solicitor, the agent, the accountant, the expert and the guarantor each have a name, a role and a phone number. A file recording only the client leaves all of them inside somebody's sent items. Our guide to related parties on a matter covers recording them while the matter runs. That habit pays for itself at the next conflicts search. A search reads names, and names only arrive in the list when somebody records the parties. Diract CRM searches the whole contact list, which is what makes a conflicts check something a firm of three can genuinely run.

The field nobody completes

A firm that cannot say which accountant sends it work cannot thank the right people. It also cannot notice when one of them stops. One field at file opening answers that for years afterwards, and no later reconstruction can replace it. Our guide to where legal work comes from covers reading the answer once a year. Diract CRM links the source to the referrer's own contact rather than storing a typed name, so six spellings of one accountant still total correctly.

One conversation, across three open files

A client with three open files gets three updates from three lawyers, and nobody sees the whole conversation. The awkward call usually follows: somebody rings about a settlement while the client waits on an answer about something else entirely. A view by client shows the last contact across every matter. Diract CRM puts that on the client record, so anybody about to pick up the phone can read what the firm last said. The record of what the firm advised and promised mostly lives in email, usually in one mailbox. Our guide to filing email against the matter covers getting it into a record the whole team reads.

An enquiry is not a matter yet

A person who rang on Tuesday and has not engaged the firm is not a file. Forcing them into the matter list distorts every report the firm reads, from new matters to average value. Diract CRM keeps enquiries separately, with their own stages, until an engagement turns one into a matter. The enquiry list then answers its own question: who is waiting on a fee estimate, and who has gone quiet. Neither of those questions belongs in a matter report.

Dates and money that belong to the client

A will review, a lease expiry, a company review date: each of those belongs to the client and outlives whatever file first noticed it. They are future work the firm already knows about, and most firms meet them again only when the client rings. Money behaves the same way. Funds held for a client sit against a matter, so a client with three matters has three balances and no total. A principal asking what the firm holds for that client rarely has a screen that answers. Diract CRM totals it at client level while every entry stays on its own matter ledger.

Two screens, one for money and one for people

A partner wants the trust position, the unbilled time and the unpaid invoices. That is a money screen, and most firms have one. The people screen is the one usually missing: new enquiries, engagements pending, and clients nobody has contacted this quarter. Diract CRM builds both from the same records, because a client's money and a client's silence are facts about the same person. A firm reading only the first screen learns about the second when a client leaves.

What to change first

• Every matter links to a client contact rather than a typed name
• Opening a client shows their matters, people and money position
• The other side, agents and experts all become contacts
• Referral source gets recorded at file opening
• Enquiries live outside the matter list until engagement
• Every email files against the matter, readable by the team
• Client level dates such as reviews and expiries get recorded