Matter record and client reporting
For a firm that spends the last three days of every month rebuilding the first twenty-seven. The stages, the agent’s mandate, the sign-off, the record fields, the measure and the exit terms.
The report is assembled from the record, not reconstructed at month end.
Who it is for
A firm that spends the last three days of every month rebuilding what happened in the first twenty-seven. The work was done and it was done well. What is missing is the record of it, written while it happened.
The trigger
A matter stage completing, and a reporting date.
The stages
Record the stage
Each stage is recorded as it closes, with its owner and its sign-off.
Attach
The artefacts that belong to the stage are attached to it rather than filed separately.
Assemble
On the reporting date the report is assembled from the record, and any gap is flagged rather than filled.
Partner reviews
The partner responsible for the matter reads, corrects and signs.
Send
The report goes to the client in whatever form the client is used to.
Keep
The version that was sent is kept with the record.
What the agent may read, keep and do
| May read | The matter record and its artefacts. |
|---|---|
| May keep | The assembled report versions, for the retention period agreed with you. |
| May do | Assemble, summarise within the record, and flag a stage with no owner or no sign-off. It may not send a report, characterise an outcome, or state a fee. |
Where a person signs
Stage 04, by the partner responsible for the matter. Nothing reaches a client unsigned, and the signature covers the characterisation as well as the arithmetic.
What the record contains
The stage record is the firm’s own history of how it works, written while the work happens.
These are the fields, not a real matter. No client work appears on this site.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Stages | Every stage, with its owner, its time and its sign-off |
| Artefacts | What the stage produced, attached to the stage |
| Gaps | Any stage with no owner or no sign-off, flagged rather than filled |
| Report | Every report version assembled from the record |
| Review | The partner’s corrections and signature |
| Send | What was sent, to whom, and when |
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 reports assembled from the record without manual reconstruction. The second is the hours the month end previously took, taken as a baseline before anything changes.
The systems it usually sits on
The matter system, the document system, and whatever the client is sent the report in. LEXSAS resells none of these and claims no certified connector to any of them.
The first week
- Day one
- The scope call: matter types, the stages a matter actually has, who signs each, the reporting date, the measure.
- Days two and three
- We take a recent month end and count how the report was actually assembled, and how long it took.
- Day four
- The stage list, the mandate and the report format are written down, and you correct them.
- Day five
- The record format is agreed, the baseline is taken and the pilot dates are fixed.
Exit terms
The stage record is the firm’s own history of how it works, and it is what supports pricing by stage rather than by hour. It is yours in an exportable format from the first day.
Three questions
It assembles the report from what is already in the record and flags any stage with no owner or no sign-off. It does not characterise an outcome and it does not state a fee.
The gap is flagged rather than filled. A report assembled from an incomplete record says so, which is the point of assembling it from the record.
Pricing by stage needs a history of how the firm’s matters actually run. That history is written while the work happens, and it cannot be reconstructed at month end.
The controls behind this page are in the LEXSAS operating standard, sections 5 and 8. The reasoning is in The billable hour is running out of logic. Get in touch