Matter management allows users to brief, triage, track, collaborate, search, store and report on all matters seamlessly via a single integrated platform.
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To ensure that you are getting the most out of our matter management module, requesting legal support can be customised to provide your users with a list of relevant categories and sub-categories within your organisation.

Accurate and specific categories allow your team to capture knowledge and provides deep insights into your team's productivity via targeted reporting.

You can manage your matter management categories in your settings menu if you are a platform administrator. This is permission based. If you are not able to manage your matter category settings, please check with your team for permission or contact us via live chat or [email protected].

Step 1. To get started, head to your Settings tab in your menu, then click Account.

Step 2. From the available list of tabs, click Matter categories.

With the matter categories tab, you can:

Legal teams have the ability to triage matters as a lawyer, including the ability to prioritise matters and assign matters to other users in the system. Whilst regular business users will be able to see the changes, it's only these nominated legal users who can initiate that change. To designate your legal team members for matter management:

Step 1. Directly under the heading for Legal team, you'll see a list of users. Click the pencil on the right hand side to add any individuals to this list.

Step 2. Then click the tick to save your changes.

Having relevant matter categories and sub-categories will greatly enhance your reporting on matters. We'll provide you with an out-of-the-box list of categories to use, however you may like to edit these over time.

Directly under the legal users section, you will find a table of all categories and sub-categories currently available in the system.

Step 1. From the matter categories page, you can click the blue Create category button to add to the existing categories on this list.

Step 2. Fill in the new category name. Then add any additional sub-categories by clicking the + icon. Click Create category once you have created your list.

You may also remove a sub-category at this point by clicking the minus icon next to the desired sub-category.

Whether your preference is to order your categories by priority, in alphabetical order or by relevance, you can Reorder your list of categories and sub-categories as you desire.

Step 1. Click the blue button to Reorder.

Step 2. Square icons will appear to the very far right for each row of your category list, where you'll be able to drag and drop each row into its correct spot.

This functionality is available for both the categories and sub-categories.

Step 3. Click Save in the top left hand corner once you are happy with your order.

If you'd like to rename any of your existing categories, you can do so by editing them accordingly.

Step 1. Click the Edit icon to the very far right hand side of your category or sub-category row.

Step 2. You'll be able to edit the name field for your categories and sub-categories accordingly.

Step 3. Click the Tick at the end of the row to save your changes.

Any existing matters attached to that renamed category or sub-category will also update.

Whilst you don't have the ability to remove categories, if you have any categories that are no longer relevant to your organisation, you can make them inactive. Any existing matters created with the inactive category will still maintain the original category details unless updated.

Step 1. Click the Edit button to the very far right hand side of your category or sub-category row.

Step 2. Next to the row labelled Active, change the setting from Yes to No.

Step 3. Click the Tick at the end of the row to save your changes.

If you wish to replace a category inclusive of any existing matters, you may opt to rename the category you wish to replace instead.

By default, all users can see matters that they created, are assigned to, or are a labelled contact for. In addition to this, lawyers can see all matters that were created in any of the organisational units that they are assigned to.

You may wish to make a sub-category private so that only designated lawyers within the organisational unit can see matters created under those categories.

Step 1. Click the Edit button to the very far right hand side of your sub-category row.

Step 2. Next to the row labelled Private, change the setting from No to Yes.

Step 3. The field labelled Visible to will appear.

Specify the specific lawyers and/or roles that will have the ability to see the category. Name those individuals or roles here.

Optional. You may also like to ensure that these individuals are notified when this kind of matter is created. If this is the case, ensure to add that individual or role to the Notification recipients column too.

Step 4. Click the Tick at the end of the row to save your changes.

You can determine who's notified when a new matter is created for a specific category or sub-category. To do so:

Step 1. Click the Edit button to the very far right hand side of your category or sub-category row.

Step 2. In the Notification recipients column, add the name(s) of the individual(s) who you'd like to notify when these matter categories are submitted through the system. Note that only the names of the Legal Management users will show in this list.

Step 3. Click the Tick at the end of the row to save your changes.

Each matter that comes through Plexus will need to be assigned to a given user. You can take the double handling out of this matter by auto-assigning lawyers depending on the matter's category.

If you auto-assign matters to lawyers on the category level, the assigned lawyer will be assigned for any of the sub-categories underneath. If you wish to go a level deeper, you may highlight a specific auto-assignee for each sub-category instead.

Step 1. To the right hand side of the category list, click the Edit button to the very far right hand side of your category or sub-category row.

Step 2. In the Auto assignees column, add the name(s) of the individual(s) who you'd like to assign when matters of this categorisation are submitted through the system. Note that only the names of the Legal Management users will show in this list.

Step 3. Click the Tick at the end of the row to save your changes.

Where you haven't specified notification recipients for categories, we'll use the default recipients to notify these users instead. We highly recommend adding a default recipient in this section, because it's also used for the default "Other" category as well.

Step 1. To assign your default recipients for matter notifications, click the blue Default recipients button.

Step 2. Enter the name(s) of the individuals who should be notified at this stage.

Step 3. Click Save once you're happy with your inputs.

​Need help with configuring your matter categories? Reach out to our team via live chat or [email protected].