Where the second matter really begins

A firm with a hundred past clients has a hundred relationships it could reasonably contact, and usually contacts none. The second matter goes to whoever the client thought of first. The firm that finished the first file has the best claim on that thought, and it loses the claim to silence. Most of what decides the second matter happened on the first one, months before anybody needed it.

Most future work is visible on the current file

A conveyance mentions a will nobody has updated. A company sale mentions a shareholders agreement written in 2014. Those are matters the firm already knows about, and the only missing piece is a record with a date on it. A lawyer who plans to raise the will next time raises it never, because no next time arrives until the client rings. Diract CRM holds a dated task against the client, so the prompt arrives without depending on anybody's memory.

Client level dates outlive the matter

A lease expiry, a company review, an option date and a limitation period all belong to the client rather than the file. Recording them on the contact means they survive the matter closing, which is exactly when they would otherwise disappear. Diract CRM keeps the date on the client and sends the reminder to the relationship partner. A file closed in June cannot prompt anybody in March, and the client will not think of it either.

The closing letter is the best moment

A client at the end of a successful matter is more willing to hear about related work than at any other point. Our guide to closing a file covers using that moment rather than sending a letter that only ends things. A short conversation about the next twelve months finds work no system would have predicted. It also tells the firm which services the client never knew it offered, which is usually most of them. A client who came for a conveyance often has no idea the same firm handles their business structure or their will.

One partner owns the relationship

A client served by four lawyers across three matters has no relationship with any of them. Nobody notices when that client leaves, because nobody was the person they would have told. A named relationship partner on the client record fixes that. The name is also what turns the yearly review into somebody's job, rather than a good intention the firm repeats each January.

Keep in touch without a newsletter

A firm sending a quarterly update about itself is easy to ignore. A note about something affecting this client specifically is not. The second version needs the record to know who the client is, which is the whole argument for keeping their details properly. A business client, an individual estate planning client and a referring accountant need three different messages. Our guide to segmenting the client list covers separating them before anybody drafts a word.

Measure second matters, not total matters

New matters from new clients measure marketing. New matters from existing clients measure the service. Most firms can produce the first number and have never produced the second, and the second is much cheaper to improve. Diract CRM counts them separately, because every matter already links to a client contact. A firm watching the second number stops treating repeat work as luck.

A dormant client is not a lost one

Two years of silence usually means nothing happened that needed a lawyer. It rarely means dissatisfaction with the last matter. A list of clients with no matter in two years, sorted by past value, is the cheapest call sheet a firm owns. Diract CRM builds that from the matter history in one filter. The call itself is short, and it often finds a will, a sale or a lease the client had quietly postponed.

Where Diract CRM keeps the future work

Diract CRM holds a dated task against the client rather than the matter, so a will review survives the file that first noticed it. The reminder reaches the relationship partner by email and by push notification. Client level dates, the relationship partner and the matter history all sit on one screen. A firm reading that screen once a year finds most of next year's work already recorded.

What to change first

• Future work noticed on a file gets recorded with a date
• Client level dates sit on the contact, not the matter
• The closing conversation covers the client's next twelve months
• Communication follows a segment rather than one newsletter
• Each client names a relationship partner
• Second matters get measured separately from new clients
• Clients with no matter in two years become a call list