How Consolidated Matter Management Can Solve Legal Team Challenges

According to a LawVu article by Aqua Delaney, in-house legal operations professionals have faced increasing challenges as the demand for efficiency rises amidst shrinking resources. While legal operations departments grapple with heavier workloads due to evolving regulations, complex litigation, and technological advancements, consolidated matter management has become a critical focus for improvement.

In recent years, the definition of a legal matter has expanded, now involving the organization and tracking all aspects of legal work from intake to task management to reporting. Managing requests, projects, documents, workflows, and communications are all considered legal matters. However, a lack of centralized systems and processes creates inefficiencies. 

Legal teams spend excessive time searching for information, managing manual tasks, and using disparate software tools. Challenges include scattered information, lack of standardized processes, limited workflow visibility, high-risk data handling, and inadequate metrics. These challenges increase operational costs and hinder legal teams’ ability to support business objectives.

To resolve these challenges, legal operations professionals are turning to consolidated matter management. Consolidated matter management software streamlines legal workflows by capturing tasks and processes as legal matters. The software simplifies reporting, provides valuable data-driven insights, enables scalability, lowers costs, and reduces risks.

It should be noted that many legal teams depend on multiple technology solutions. LawVu’s 2024 In-house Legal Technology Report reveals that 42% use four or more software vendors for their legal operations. Consolidating matter, spend, and contract management into a unified legal workspace eliminates reliance on multiple tools, enabling in-house legal teams to save time, enhance collaboration, and deliver greater strategic value.