Matter intake and engagement scoping
For a firm where new instructions arrive to whoever answered the telephone. The stages, the agent’s mandate, the two signatures, the record fields, the measure a pilot uses and the exit terms.
From instruction to a scoped file, before the first hour is booked.
Who it is for
A firm where new instructions arrive to whoever answered the phone, and where scope is agreed in an email nobody can find later. The argument about what was in scope always happens after the work, and it is always argued from memory.
The trigger
A new instruction from a client, or a referral.
The stages
Capture the instruction
What was asked, by whom, on what date, is written down before anything else happens.
Conflicts
The search runs and its result goes in front of the person the firm authorises to clear it.
Scope
Stages, budget and assumptions are proposed from the firm’s own scoping precedents.
Engagement letter
The letter is drawn from the firm’s own templates, never composed from scratch.
Partner signs
A partner agrees the scope and the fee, and signs.
Open the file
The matter opens with its stages and its budget already in place.
What the agent may read, keep and do
| May read | The instruction, the client and matter database, the engagement templates, and the firm’s scoping precedents. |
|---|---|
| May keep | The scope and its assumptions, for the retention period agreed with you. |
| May do | Run the search, assemble the result, draft the letter from a template, and propose stages and a budget. It may not clear a conflict, send the letter, or agree a fee. Conflicts clearance is a professional judgment and stays one. |
Where a person signs
Twice. Stage 02 for conflicts, by the person the firm authorises to clear them. Stage 05 for the engagement, by the partner. Neither signature can be delegated to the workflow, and the record carries both names.
What the record contains
This is the file that answers the scope argument, and it exists before the argument does.
These are the fields, not a real matter. No client work appears on this site.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Instruction | What was asked, by whom, and on what date |
| Conflicts | The search terms used and the result they returned |
| Clearance | Who cleared the conflict and when |
| Scope | The stages, the budget and the assumptions behind them |
| Letter | The engagement letter version drawn from the firm’s templates |
| Signature | The partner who signed, and the time of signature |
| Opening | The stages and budget the file opened with |
Entries are written as the run happens and are append-only. A correction is a new entry naming the one it corrects. Section 5 of the operating standard says what that means in practice.
The measure a pilot uses
One measure, chosen by you. The one I would usually propose is the share of matters opened with a signed engagement letter and named stages before the first hour is booked. The baseline comes from matters already opened. The second is the time from instruction to conflicts clearance.
The systems it usually sits on
The practice management or matter system, the document system, and e-imza and KEP where the letter is signed and served electronically in Türkiye. LEXSAS resells none of these and claims no certified connector to any of them.
The first week
- Day one
- The scope call: who takes instructions today, who clears conflicts, which templates are current, the measure.
- Days two and three
- We read a set of recently opened matters and see how each was actually scoped. The variation is usually the finding.
- Day four
- The mandate, the conflicts record format and the scoping template are written down, and you correct them.
- Day five
- The engagement letter versions and the record format are agreed, the baseline is taken and the pilot dates are fixed.
Exit terms
The scoping templates and the conflicts record format are yours, in an exportable format, from the first day. So is every opening record the workflow wrote.
Three questions
No. It runs the search and puts the result in front of the person the firm authorises to clear it. Conflicts clearance is a professional judgment and stays one.
No. It proposes stages and a budget from the firm’s own scoping precedents. The partner signs, and only the partner agrees a fee.
It is written down, and that note is the capture stage. A matter with no written instruction is the one that gets argued about later.
The controls behind this page are in the LEXSAS operating standard, sections 2 to 5. The other three firm workflows are on the workflows page. Get in touch