Thursday, 4:10 p.m.
The wrong draft went out.
Two associates edited copies of the same motion. Version three was filed; the partner’s changes were in version four, on someone’s desktop.
Legal · law firms and legal departments
One file per matter. The current draft. Nothing destroyed early.
Content Central keeps every pleading, letter, email and draft filed to the matter, in the cloud or on your firm's own servers: confidential, versioned, held when litigation looms and destroyed on schedule when it does not.
The life of a matter
From the intake call to the shredder, one record of everything.
A matter's paper has obligations at both ends: confidentiality while it is open, and the right retention after it closes. The file should know which stage it is in.
Who keeps the file
- Firm administrator
- You own the systems, the budget and the closed-file room. When a partner asks whether a file can be destroyed, or a client asks for theirs, the answer has to come from you, and it has to be right.
- Litigation paralegal
- Pleadings, notices, discovery and correspondence for a dozen matters at once. You need the current draft, the filed version and every letter in one place, found by case number or a phrase you remember.
- Records and IT
- Who can open which matter, what happens when a lateral joins with a conflict, and proof of who saw what. Client files live in the cloud or on the firm’s own servers, your choice.
What goes wrong today
Three bad afternoons every firm knows.
Monday, 9:30 a.m.
The hold that never reached the file room.
Litigation was expected on a matter that closed last year. The hold email went out, but the closed boxes were already on the destruction list.
Friday, 2:45 p.m.
The client wants their file.
The representation ended and the client asks for their papers. They are in three places: a cabinet, a shared drive and a partner’s inbox.
None of these is about effort. Each is a file that lived in more than one place, with no single record of its versions or its retention.
A day with Ademero
Monday: a new matter opens.
- 1
The client fills in the intake form before the meeting.
A fillable intake form goes to the prospective client by email. They need no account. When they submit it, the form files itself to the new matter with its answers as index fields, and the submission is logged with its IP address.
- 2
The engagement letter goes out for signature.
Request signatures from the client by email, in the order you set. When everyone has signed, the signatures are flattened into the PDF and saved as a new version, and you are notified.
- 3
The complaint and the morning mail are scanned.
CapturePoint 6 splits the stack and reads the case number, plaintiff, defendant and attorney from the complaint. Each document goes to Content Central filed under the matter, as a searchable PDF.
- 4
Email lands on the matter, not in an inbox.
File messages and attachments from Outlook with the Content Central add-in, or have a mailbox on Microsoft 365, Gmail or IMAP captured automatically, with sender, date and subject as fields.
- 5
Drafts are checked out, edited in Word and checked back in.
Only one person edits at a time, and every saved version stays in the history, with who changed it and when.
- 6
The hearing date drives a reminder.
When a notice of hearing is filed with its date, a workflow rule can remind the team a set number of days before it. Keep your docketing system for court deadlines; this keeps the paper in step.
What CapturePoint 6 already knows about legal paper
From the Legal sample job that ships with it:
- Complaint
- Case number, plaintiff, defendant, attorney name
- Demand letter
- Firm name, claim number, principal due, accrued interest, costs and fees, total demand
- Engagement letter
- Firm name, client name, primary attorney
- Invoice
- Invoice number and date, bill to, client-matter number, professional services, disbursements, total
- Master services agreement
- Company, provider, governing law state
- Mutual non-disclosure agreement
- Party one, party two
The rules you work under
What to keep, how long, and who decides.
The ABA Model Rules are the starting point; each state adopts its own version, and your firm's policy fills the gaps. Ademero gives you the controls to carry out whatever you decide.
Client trust account records
ABA Model Rule 1.15 asks lawyers to keep complete trust account records and preserve them for five years after the representation ends. Your state’s version sets the actual period.
In Content CentralA retention schedule on that document type, with time remaining shown for every record.
The client’s file at the end of a representation
Model Rule 1.16(d) expects you to surrender the papers and property the client is entitled to.
In Content CentralEverything for the matter is found in one search. Set up as a packet keyed on the matter number, its documents can be merged into one file to hand over.
Matters in or near litigation
Once litigation is reasonably anticipated, relevant documents must be preserved. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) addresses electronically stored information that is lost.
In Content CentralLegal holds: set any document or matter to be kept indefinitely, overriding its schedule. Each override records who set it.
Closed matter files
How long to keep them is set by your firm’s policy and your state bar’s guidance.
In Content CentralDestruction runs on the schedule you set, per document type, and every deletion is in the audit trail.
Model Rule 1.6(c)
Make reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized access to, or disclosure of, information relating to a representation.
Permissions by catalog, document type and field value; MFA; Active Directory or SAML sign-in; a reason required before sensitive documents open.
Model Rule 1.10
When a lateral hire must be screened from a matter, the screen has to hold in the document system too.
Access can be limited by field value, for example by client or practice group, so a screened lawyer is never given access to that work. The audit trail shows who opened what.
Model Rule 1.1, comment 8
Competence includes keeping up with the benefits and risks of the technology you use.
Content Central runs in the cloud or on servers the firm controls, your choice. Scanned pages are read on the firm’s own PC, so you can say exactly where client files are.
What you would use
CapturePoint 6
At the scanner
Scans the mail, productions and boxes of closed files. It splits the stack, recognizes complaints, demand letters, agreements and invoices from the start, learns your other documents as you confirm them, and sends each one to Content Central. Pages are read on the PC by the scanner, so privileged material is not sent anywhere to be read.
Content Central
The matter file, in the cloud or on your own servers
- Full-text search across every matter, with hits highlighted on the page
- Check-out and check-in, with every version kept
- Edit in Word and save straight back as a new version
- Outlook and Office add-in to file email to the matter
- Signature requests to clients by email, in order
- Intake forms that clients fill in without an account
- Access by client or practice group, a reason required to open sensitive files
- Retention schedules, legal holds and a full audit trail
Keep your practice management and billing software. Content Central can look up matter and client details from another system's database when a document is filed, so names and numbers match.
About Content CentralIn a corporate legal department?
Outside counsel invoices and the contract shelf.
Invoices from outside counsel. CapturePoint 6 reads the client-matter number, professional services, disbursements and total. In Content Central, invoices over an amount you set go to a second approver, and approved ones can be exported to QuickBooks, Sage, Workday or Epicor.
Agreements and NDAs. Master services agreements and NDAs are filed with the parties and governing law state, found in one search, and a workflow rule reminds the owner a set number of days before an agreement expires.
More for law firms
- Document management for law firms
- Legal document scanning software
- Law firms: the matter file from intake to closing
- Contract management
- Records retention and legal holds
- Electronic signatures in Content Central
- How to choose document management software
- On-premises document management: a buyer’s guide
- Records retention policy template
- Content Central help library
Since 2002, more than 1,000 organizations have used Ademero software. Fortune 500 companies and government agencies review our security every year and keep renewing.
Free live demo
Bring a real matter file. We will show you where every page goes.
Book a free demo and we will show you around, answer your questions and run your real paperwork through it. No cost, no pressure.
- A live tour of the products that fit your work
- Your own documents, set up and shown working
- Your workflow and process, mapped with you
- Straight answers from people who build it
