A Matter is a record of a Client’s specific legal enquiry (e.g. a patent application, a criminal offence, application for divorce, etc.).

Creating and Viewing Matters

Select the Matter tab from within Unity PMS and click “New”, located on the top right side of the screen. Once the form loads, enter the relevant details relating to the new Matter.

Basic fields included are:

Matter Name - The reference number for the Matter which can be anything that best matches your legal practice’s adopted naming conventions. This may be unavailable if you elect to use the autonumbering function.

Client - The client for the Matter, which can either be a person or a business entity. If the client does not already exist within the system, one can be created by clicking the search bar and selecting “New Account”.

Primary Contact - The primary point of contact for the Matter. There is an option to use a contact from the client records, but please keep in mind that if you are using the details from a client record that has recently been created from this screen, it may take a few moments to display in the search. Alternatively, use a pre-existing contact or create a new contact from the search bar.

Open Date - The date the Matter was opened.

Close Date - Added once the Matter has been finalised and closed.

Matter Summary - A description of the Matter.

Branch - The office/branch responsible for looking after the Matter. A Branch can be created from the search bar, or if pre-existing, can be added directly by search.

Once saved the Matter Record Page will be displayed.

View Matter Record

Highlights Panel

A summary of Matter information. Matter Plans can also be assigned from this section.

Related List Quick Links

This contains links to all records related to the Matter that is currently open.

Activity

Tasks assigned to the Matter will be displayed here.

Details

All Information provided when the Matter was created will be shown here.

Financials

Overview of Cost Agreements, Invoices and Available Funds. Related Trust Transactions, Protected Funds, Disbursements and Invoices are all displayed here, you have the option to create new records as well.

Precedents

The precedents tab will hold all the precedents that are available to be generated for this record.

Work in Progress (WIP)

Time Entries related to the matter can be created and viewed here.

Matter Plan 

Matter Plans are used to highlight the progress of the matter's progress. These are custom created records that suit your business' needs. Matter plans give you the progression and tasks available for the particular 

Teams 

Teams are used for assigning tasks on a Matter Plan. If no team is defined, any tasks on a Matter will default to the Matter Owner.

Parties

We can collate a list of all parties to the matter here.