Matter intake and engagement scoping
The instruction is written down, conflicts are searched and decided by a person, and the scope and engagement letter are signed by the partner and approved by the client before the file opens.
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.
A new matter from an existing client uses the same entry point. No file opens until the instruction, its date and its sender are recorded in writing.
The stages
Capture the instruction
What was asked, by whom, through which channel and on what date is written down before anything else happens. The parties and subject fill the initial fields.
Conflicts search
The search runs against the firm’s own matter and party lists. The query and its result are recorded as returned.
Conflicts decision
The result goes in front of the person the firm authorises to clear it. That person makes the decision, which is recorded under their name.
Scope
Stages, budget and assumptions are proposed from the firm’s own scoping precedents. Exclusions from scope are recorded too.
Engagement letter
The letter is drawn from the firm’s own templates, never composed from scratch. Every departure from the template is flagged.
Partner signs; client approves
A partner agrees the scope and the fee and signs the letter. It goes to the client, whose approval is recorded with its time.
Open the file
The matter opens only after conflicts clearance and the signed, client-approved engagement, with its stages and budget in place. The first hour is booked afterwards.
What the agent may read, keep and do
| May read | The instruction, the client and matter database and party lists, the engagement templates, and the firm’s scoping precedents. |
|---|---|
| May keep | The scope, its assumptions and the search query, for the retention period agreed with you. No copy of the search result is kept outside its file. |
| 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, accept the engagement, send the letter, or agree a fee. Conflicts clearance is a professional judgment and stays one. |
Where a person signs
Twice. Stage 03 for conflicts, by the person the firm authorises to clear them. Stage 06 for the engagement, by the partner. Neither signature can be delegated to the workflow, and the record carries both names.
The two signers may be different people. The decision maker sees the search result, the lists searched and the proposed scope; sources that were not searched remain visible. The file cannot open before conflicts clearance.
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, through which channel 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 for each stage, the assumptions behind them and the scope exclusions |
| Letter | The engagement letter version and its departures from the firm’s template |
| Signature | The partner who signed, and the time of signature |
| Opening | The opening time and the first stage, with the stages and budget the file opened with |
| Matter | The matter identifier, its type and its parties |
| Client approval | The client’s approval and the time it was recorded |
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 opened over the last three months. Time from instruction to conflicts clearance is recorded for information, not as a second acceptance measure.
The critical error is a matter opened before conflicts clearance. Tolerance is zero: one such event prevents the workflow from passing the gate.
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. If the firm runs no matter software, the workflow runs on the document system and the mailbox. 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 the matters opened over the last three months 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, a gold set is built from past matters, the baseline is taken and the pilot dates are fixed.
The engagement brief determines the sequence for each assignment. This is the usual order of work, not a timetable commitment.
Exit terms
Everything below is yours from the first day and leaves with you in an exportable format, whatever happens to the workflow:
- The scoping and stage templates
- The engagement template and its version history
- The conflicts records and their record format
- The mandate and its register
- The gold set and every run record
The scoping templates and the conflicts record format are the firm’s own. They remain usable if the software changes; the exit terms are written into the pilot from the start.
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: research and citation verification, drafting from precedent and matter record and client reporting. The terms are defined in the glossary. All eight workflows are on the workflows page. Get in touch