Opening a matter so it closes cleanly

A practice opening a matter quickly feels efficient. The cost arrives later, when somebody cannot bill because the client's details were never captured.

Everything skipped at opening gets chased at a worse moment, usually by a more expensive person.

Capture the parties properly, once

The client's full legal name, the correct entity, the other side, and anybody related enough to matter for a conflict check.

An invoice addressed to a trading name rather than the company gets queried. A conflict check run on a nickname finds nothing.

Scope belongs on the file, not in the engagement letter alone

The engagement letter sets what the firm agreed to do. The file needs the same information where fee earners actually look.

Scope creep is easiest to see when the original scope is visible beside the work. Our guide to write offs and work in progress covers what happens when it is not.

Decide who pays before the work starts

A matter where the client and the payer differ needs that recorded at opening, along with any arrangement about costs.

Discovering at billing that an insurer, a parent company or a family member was meant to pay is the most avoidable delay in a practice.

Conflict checks come before the file, not afterwards

A check run after work begins is a check whose only useful outcome is bad news arriving late.

Our guide to a conflict check process covers making it quick enough that nobody skips it.

Set the key dates on the day

Limitation dates, court dates and contractual deadlines all exist from the beginning. A diary entry made at opening survives whoever leaves.

A date living in one person's memory is the single largest risk a small practice runs, and it costs nothing to remove.

Name the responsible person and the supervisor

A file with no named owner drifts. A file with no supervisor gets supervised by whoever notices, which is nobody during a busy month.

Both names belong on the file at opening, and both should change deliberately rather than by drift.

Agree the closing conditions at the start

A matter with no definition of completion stays open for years, carrying storage, review obligations and unbilled work in progress.

Writing down what finishing looks like makes closing an event rather than an oversight.

One form, used by everybody

Two ways to open a matter produce two standards of file, and the faster one wins every time somebody is busy.

A single form that asks for everything, with required fields where they matter, is the only thing that holds a standard through a busy week.

The form also belongs to somebody. A field that everybody ignores either matters and should be required, or does not and should go.

Capture how the client wants to be contacted

A client who prefers a phone call and receives only email feels ignored by a firm doing the work properly.

One line at opening prevents a complaint that is entirely about communication rather than about the legal work.

The file opens before the work, not afterwards

Work done before a matter exists gets recorded late, billed late or lost entirely, and the conflict check happens after the risk.

A five minute opening at the point of instruction is the cheapest part of any matter.

What to change first

• Full legal names and the correct entity get captured at opening
• Scope sits on the file, not only in the engagement letter
• The payer gets recorded whenever it differs from the client
• The conflict check completes before any work begins
• Limitation and key dates enter the diary the same day
• Every file names a responsible person and a supervisor