A Debrief on Matter Stages in Clio Manage
Used by many firms, Clio Manage's Matter Stages feature allows you to visually track the progress of cases in your law firm. By using matter stages, you can easily move cases between different phases, gain firm-wide visibility into case statuses, improve collaboration, prioritize tasks effectively, and manage a larger caseload with ease.
If you’re not familiar, you can read more on Clio’s Matter Stages here. (link blog post)
However, if you are a loyal user to Clio’s Matter Stages feature, we highly suggest you keep reading – we’ve built an automation that will enhance your experience.
Leveraging LegalMate Automation for Matter Stages
We’ve designed a pre-built automation that is now live in our library that takes your Clio Matter Stages experience a step further. Now, you can automate actions associated with moving matter cards between stages. This not only saves you time but also ensures consistency and efficiency in your workflows.
Here are examples of the actions you can select within each category of workflow:
Client Communication
- Draft an Email: Automatically draft an email in your inbox whether that be Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, when a matter is moved to a new stage.
- Send an Email: Directly from the information in the associated matter, we can generate and send an automatically email directly to your client upon updating a matter to a new stage. This ensures timely updates and reduces the risk of missed communications.
- Attach a Document: Generate a document using Clio Manage’s document automation and we will automatically attach the document to your client email, ready for you to hit send.
Time and Task Management
- Time Entries: As soon as a matter advances to the next stage, an automation action could be to create time entries with pre populated data, ensuring accurate and timely billing. This removes the need for manual time tracking and helps in maintaining precise records.
- Notes and Custom Fields: Automatically create notes or update custom fields, keeping all matter details up-to-date with limited to no manual entry. This helps ensure your records are always up to date.
- Create Task List: Start a tasks list automatically when it reaches a certain matter stage.
- Start New Tasks: When a task is finished, automatically generate the next task for your firm.
File Organization
- Document Generation: Using the matter custom fields, automatically generate a document with information pertaining to the case.
- Folder and Subfolder Creation: Generate subfolders within Clio, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Drive, organized according to the new matter stage, for streamlined document management. This ensures all relevant documents are neatly organized and easily accessible. You can generate documents in those subfolders via Clio Manage's Document automation
Client Updates
- Send Client Text Messages via Dialpad: When a matter moves to a new stage, send a text message via Dialpad to notify clients of important updates related to their matter’s progress. You’ll never miss sharing an update, and you’ll be shocked at how far this goes with your clients – at no extra time for you.
- Calendar Events: Create calendar events for critical dates or deadlines, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Closing matter
- Attain More Reviews: Automatically send a review mail or text message via Dialpad to get a Google or Facebook Review.
- Close Matter: Mark the matter Closed and assign tasks to anyone in the firm.
Where to start and how does it work?
Implementing LegalMate’s automation is straightforward. Identify the key stages in your workflow where automation actions can make the most impact, ranging anywhere from client communications, document generation, or task management. Select up to 10 actions, from the list above, that require the most amount of your time. Then, we’ll meet for 30 minutes to discuss implementation details, and shortly after that, you’ll have a live automation and a shorter to-do list.
