In this article:
Overview
A key concept when creating matters in LawVu is the 'Matter Type'.
Matter types, at their most basic, allow you to categorize the type of matter you're working on so that you can easily report on it down the line.
However, you can get a lot more out of your matter types by assigning custom fields to them.
This means you can say, "Whenever I create a matter with the type of 'Lease review' I need to capture these specific fields, 'Document ID', 'Lease value' etc, etc".
You can have as many matter types and custom field combinations as you wish.
Whenever you create a new matter, the first step will be to choose a 'Matter type'.
How do I manage matter types?
Currently, we create a default list of matter types that can be customized by a member of your team with the appropriate permissions - usually the person that administers your LawVu account.
Organization admins can manage them by clicking on the 'Settings' icon at the bottom of the main navigation strip and then clicking on the 'Matter management' and then Matter types settings.
1. Admins have the ability to create a new matter type;
Once a matter type has been created you can build it out with fields.
Fields are the individual data points that you want to capture for a matter type (or contract type). These can be things like a paragraph field that captures the background details of the matter, or a drop-down list of departments, etc. Learn more about how fields work.
2. The option to duplicate or delete an existing matter type is also available when you click on the three-ellipsis button present on the right-hand side of the matter type page:
Duplicating the matter type involves copying all the fields and configurations established in the original template.
Deleting it will permanently delete the specific matter type, but you can reach out to the LawVu team to get it restored for you.
3. Admins also can choose to add a 'child' to matter types. Note that if you create a 'child' matter type - it will automatically inherit the fields and options from its parent matter type. This isn't an enforced relationship, however - it's just a starting point. If you later update fields in parent matter types, those changes will NOT flow down to child matter types.
Child matter types are sorted alphabetically, and you can easily move them from one parent to another by dragging and dropping them.