A matter numbering system that still works at ten thousand files

Most firms choose a matter numbering system in the week they open and live with it for twenty years. The schemes that fail do not fail on day one. They fail years in, when the practice area code no longer fits the work, the partner whose initials are in half the numbers has left, and a list of files no longer sorts in the order they were opened.

So judge a scheme by the ten thousandth number it will issue, not the first.

What a matter numbering system has to do

A matter number has one job: to point at exactly one matter, for good. Showing the client, the type of work or the year is a convenience on top of that job. Conveniences are where schemes break, because they record facts that change.

• Unique. No two matters share a number, across every office and every year.
• Permanent. A number is never changed and never reused, including for a matter opened in error.
• Sortable. Numbers sort in the order they were issued, in a folder listing as well as in your software.
• Short enough to say. Someone can read it over the phone once, without spelling it back.

Where schemes break

Codes that go stale

A practice area code such as CONV or LIT reads well in the first year. Then a conveyancing matter turns into a dispute, and every letter in the dispute carries CONV. Fee earner initials fail the same way when a matter changes hands or a solicitor leaves. The number cannot be corrected without breaking every reference to it already printed on a letter, an invoice or a receipt.

Running out of digits

Some systems give each client a three digit matter number beneath its client number. That caps one client at 999 matters, which is plenty for most clients and not enough for a lender or insurer sending you a steady stream of recoveries.

A firm wide sequence padded to four digits has the same problem later. It overflows at 10000, and in any list sorted as text, 10000 lands ahead of 9999.

Resetting every January

Formats like 2024-001 restart the count each year, so 001 exists once for every year the firm has been open. That is safe only while everybody always writes and says the year. The first time someone asks for file 001 without it, there are several.

The opening date as the number

Using the date the matter opened, such as 20240115, with a letter added for a second matter that day, sorts well and needs no register. It strains on a busy day. After 26 matters the letters run out, and 20240115aa is where the scheme starts needing rules of its own.

A format that lasts

Keep the number plain and put the meaning in fields on the matter. A zero padded sequence that never resets handles every problem above.

• One sequence for the whole firm. 000412 today, 010000 in a few years, in the same width.
• Pad to six digits. Five digits lasts a firm opening a hundred matters a week about nineteen years. Six lasts it close to two hundred.
• The year in front, if you want it. 2026-000412 tells a reader roughly how old the file is, while the sequence alone stays unique.
• Client, work type and fee earner as fields. Those can change. The number does not.
• Related matters linked, not suffixed. An appeal gets its own number and a field pointing to the first matter, rather than 000412A.
• Never reused. An abandoned matter's number stays retired, so no reference ever points at two sets of records.

Issue the number at intake

Give a matter its number when it is opened, before every detail is collected. If a number is only issued once billing details and background are complete, staff record time against a general file and save documents to their own folders while they wait. Some firms issue a provisional number after the conflict check and the essential details, then complete the rest later.

A matter you decline keeps its number too. It is the record that the work was offered and turned down, and it will matter when the other side's name comes up again.

Changing a scheme you already have

Do not renumber old matters. Every letter, invoice and receipt already sent carries the old number, and a renumbered file cannot be found from its own paperwork. Start the new format from a set date, leave existing matters as they are, and record the old number in a field on any matter that carries over.

If an old number and a new one could look alike, start the new sequence above the highest old number. Then 4521 can only ever mean one matter, whichever scheme it came from.

The ten thousand file check

Before settling on a format, write out three numbers: your first, your ten thousandth, and the last one you would issue on your busiest day. Then ask four questions of them.

1. Is the ten thousandth the same width as the first?
2. Does a list of all three, sorted as text, come out in the order they were opened?
3. Would any of them need to change if the client merged, the work changed type or the solicitor left?
4. Could someone read each one over the phone once and be understood?