LawVu Customers, Article 3: How to Engage with Outside Counsel on LawVu Matters

In this article:

Use LawVu's scope management feature to set expectations for the work to be completed, the likely costs, and the required timeframes.

The basic concept for scope workflow is very simple:

To initiate the scoping process, select the “Scope Management” tab within the matter. This will either be visible immediately or will need activating via the matter ellipsis button.

LawVu currently requires you to select a matter manager when you create the scope. Select yourself as the matter manager until you have completed the scope and can select outside counsel to be the matter manager.

1 - From the matter, click on the ellipsis and choose "Enable scope management" then click Proceed.

2 - The "Assign matter manager" pop-up will appear. Click on +Assign and add any relevant notes if needed. It is best to keep the matter manager as either yourself or someone in your organization until you have completed the scope.

Note: If you have assigned a matter manager, you will see their name or organization in the popup.

3 - You will now see “Scope management” as a new tab in the matter.

4 - Open the “Scope management” tab and click on “Edit”

5 - Edit the scope in the popup and click on “Save.”

Note: Your scope form should be pre-configured with the fields your organization wants to collect when issuing instructions and agreeing on a scope for this type of matter. To know how to configure matter scoping for Outside Counsel, you can check this article or speak to your LawVu Administrator to set this up.

Once you are happy with your matter details, files, and scope management, the matter can now be assigned to your outside counsel. Do this by allocating them to the “Matter Manager” role by selecting “Intake Queue.” From intake, your outside counsel will assign a specific Matter Manager.

1 - From within the matter, click on “Matter manager.”

2 -You can now assign the matter to your Outside Counsel’s intake queue, which will prompt them to respond to your scope requirements. Choose the organisation name from the drop-down and click on “Select” next to “Intake queue.”

Be aware that the matter will remain in your own organization's intake box until someone from the external law firm accepts the assignment. This is to ensure you do not lose oversight of the matter until someone else assumes responsibility for it.

Inviting a firm into a matter gives them full visibility of the specific matter, so be sure to first make any conversations or folders private if needed.

It is also worth noting that if the matter you are working on originally came from one of your business users, it is best practice to remove your internal client as “Matter Owner” and make them a matter member instead. The “Matter Owner” should be yourself, the lead in-house lawyer working on this with the firm, or at the very least the person managing communications on this matter with your outside counsel, as its the “Matter Owner” that will receive notifications about, and take control of, the scoping process.

Now that you have added outside counsel to a matter with scope, you are negotiating with outside counsel about the scope.

Outside counsel will receive an auto-generated email alert and in-app notification informing them of the instruction. Further, the matter you assigned them will be listed in their “All Matters” or “My Matters” grids, denoted with the “Scoping” state.

The outside counsel can then open the matter, examine the matter details, access the relevant files and content, and then choose whether or not to accept this matter. They can also invite in any additional lawyers from their firm that they need to, and you will both have visibility of this via the “Members” tab.

After Matter Manager acceptance, any scoping fields left blank, or pending adjustment will need completing by the outside counsel user. This maintains the Matter in a “Scoping” state until both sides have agreed on the scope. In this case, having accepted, to render this matter “Active” the scoping process must be completed in the “Scope Management” tab by clicking “Edit”.

Once the “Save” button is clicked, this is returned to the original sender in your system for scope approval. The Matter Owner will be alerted by email or their in-app notifications. In the “Scope Management” tab, you can see the fee value the outside counsel has input, along with a notification banner at the top of the screen identifying that the scope of work approval is required.

If required, you CAN continue to edit the scope, continuing the negotiation cycle, adjusting the data, and sending it back for approval by the outside counsel as needed.

This turns the Matter “Active,” and you are now working on this matter together with outside counsel, saving emails, sharing files, discussing details via conversations, and working on documents as required.

As the matter progresses, firms can then upload invoices either via industry-standard LEDES 2.0 XML files or PDF.

LawVu clients have the option to enable the ability for LSPs to create a contract within a matter.

When an LSP user creates a contract within a matter, the Contract Administrator will receive in-app and email notifications (depending on the user's notification settings).

Note that the LSP user who created the contract will automatically be assigned as the contract owner and will have the ability to make changes to the contract details, move the contract lifecycle stage and upload a new version of the contract.

The created contract will also inherit the members of the original matter it is linked to and the LSP user can add members to the contract. New added members to the contract will not reflect to the linked matter, but new members added from the matter level will automatically be added to the contract within the matter.

For an in-depth overview of the LSP Contracts module, click here.