In-house legal teams often deal with complex, interrelated matters. A single dispute may give rise to multiple legal issues, regulatory investigations can span several jurisdictions, and commercial transactions frequently have underlying agreements that require coordinated oversight.
Without a structured way to connect these matters, legal teams risk inefficiencies, duplication of effort, and missed opportunities for strategic decision-making.
The Value of Linking Related Matters
A modern matter management system should allow legal teams to link related matters efficiently, providing several key benefits:
- Improved visibility and context – Connecting related matters ensures that legal professionals can see the bigger picture. For example, linking an employment-related matter to a previous workplace investigation allows teams to identify recurring issues and develop proactive solutions.
- More efficient workflows – When related matters are linked, teams can easily navigate between them, reducing time spent searching for information.
- Enhanced risk management – Recognising relationships between matters allows legal teams to identify patterns, anticipate issues, and implement strategic risk mitigation measures.
- Stronger collaboration – Linking matters facilitates better communication and coordination between legal teams, business units, and external counsel.
Capturing the Relationship Between Matters
Beyond simply linking related matters, a robust matter management system should also allow teams to record why they are related. Capturing this context provides deeper insights and ensures that future legal professionals can understand the connections between matters without having to piece together a history manually.
For example:
- A procurement dispute may be linked to the original supplier agreement, with a note explaining the contractual breach.
- A regulatory investigation may be linked to prior compliance audits that flagged related risks.
- A group of litigation matters may be tied to a single underlying legal principle, strategy, or entity.
By documenting the rationale behind the links, legal teams gain a richer understanding of their matters, enabling more informed decision-making.
Maintaining Security Through Permission-Based Linking
While linking related matters delivers substantial benefits, it must be implemented in a way that respects access permissions. Not all legal matters are accessible to every member of a legal team, and linking should not inadvertently expose sensitive information to unauthorised individuals.
A sophisticated matter management system should enforce permission-based visibility, ensuring:
- Users can only view linked matters they have permission to access – If a confidential investigation is linked to a general commercial matter, only those with appropriate permissions will see the linked investigation.
- Sensitive information remains protected – No metadata, summaries, or linkages should reveal confidential details to unauthorised users.
Smarter Matter Management for Legal Teams
Legal operations professionals continually seek ways to improve efficiency, streamline workflows, and enhance risk management. The ability to link related matters—with appropriate context and permissions—delivers a more structured, connected, and strategic approach to matter management.
By implementing a matter management system that supports linking related matters securely, legal teams can:
- Navigate complex relationships between legal issues more effectively
- Reduce administrative burden and duplication
- Gain actionable insights for improved legal and business outcomes
- Maintain strict security and confidentiality controls
Conclusion
The ability to link related matters while maintaining security and providing context offers a significant advantage for in-house legal teams. By implementing a system that enables structured matter linking with robust permission controls, legal teams can work more efficiently, mitigate risks, and enhance strategic decision-making. In an environment where legal complexity is only increasing, a well-integrated matter management solution is essential.
Lawcadia is a legal technology company with a cloud-based platform that in-house legal teams and their law firms use to manage intake, matters, engagements, RFPs, and spend. It enables users to be more efficient, control processes and spend, and have visibility across the legal function.
An award-winning, easy to implement, intuitive and affordable end-to-end legal operations platform, Lawcadia incorporates no-code workflow automation and logic-based processes with a collaborative and secure interface.
Clients include corporate and government legal teams and over 150 law firms.
Founded in 2015, Lawcadia is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia with clients in Asia-Pacific, UK and the US.
