Volume legal case management: technology, traceability and control of large volumes of proceedings
Managing large legal portfolios requires being able to know both the overall position of the matters and the precise history of each file. Technology makes it possible to automate tasks and to control large volumes, but only a proper structuring of the information, combined with professional oversight, ensures traceability, consistency and genuine legal control.
Managing several hundred or several thousand legal files is not simply a matter of multiplying the method used for a single matter. Where the volume increases significantly, a further need arises: to design an organisation capable of applying a uniform strategy, of knowing at any given moment the position of the whole portfolio and, at the same time, of retaining the ability to reconstruct exactly what has happened in each individual file.
That capability is traceability. In a volume legal service it is one of the main indicators of quality. The client should not receive only aggregate information on how many matters are being handled. It must be possible to move down from that general overview to any individual file and to know what documents it contains, what steps have been taken, why particular decisions were adopted, what its current position is and what is to happen next.
1.From the digital file to the structured file
Digitisation does not in itself guarantee that capability. An electronic folder full of documents remains, in essence, an archive. It may have replaced paper, but it has not necessarily transformed the way the file is managed. The real difference appears when the legally relevant information is structured and can be used to control the process.
Every file contains a series of data that determine how it develops. Who is claiming and against whom, what is being claimed, what legal relationship it arises from, what documents exist, what amount is in dispute, what steps have been taken, what time limits are running, what issues have arisen or what decisions have been obtained. Identifying these elements allows the system to stop merely storing documents and to begin managing the matter in legal terms.
The “Administración de Justicia”, Spain's court service, is also moving towards ever more electronic, data-oriented environments. Digital processing, the electronic court file and structured exchanges of information mean that legal practitioners must increasingly work with information capable of being processed, classified and monitored.
For those managing a high volume of proceedings, this development is of particular importance. The internal organisation must be able to interact with an increasingly digital court environment without manually moving the same information between systems over and over again.
2.Before automating, the process must be designed
Before bringing in technology, it is necessary to decide how the file is to work in legal terms. Automating a poorly defined organisation does not solve its problems. It merely makes it possible to reproduce them faster and on a larger scale.
The first task is to determine what stages a file goes through, what information must be available at each of them, what conditions allow it to move to the next one and what circumstances require the ordinary process to be halted and the matter referred for legal review.
A file may be awaiting documents, at the out-of-court claim stage, under negotiation, awaiting the filing of court proceedings, in the course of proceedings or at the enforcement stage. Each of those states may have particular steps attached to it and conditions for moving forward.
But just as important as defining the normal route is determining when it should not be followed.
Not all apparently similar files are alike. In a portfolio of insurance recoveries there may be one group in which the third party's liability is sufficiently documented and another in which it is disputed. In a portfolio of owners' association claims there may be debts properly evidenced and others affected by issues as to their quantification or enforceability. In civil liability there may be matters whose main difficulty is causation and others in which the problem lies in the assessment of the damage.
The initial classification is decisive. It allows genuinely equivalent matters to follow a common route and those presenting a relevant difference to receive the specific attention they require.
3.Traceability as a supervisory tool
Once the information is structured, the file can be viewed simultaneously from two perspectives. We can analyse it individually and we can incorporate it into an overall view of the portfolio.
The person responsible for thousands of matters cannot review every file daily. They need aggregate information making it possible to identify where a problem lies. How many matters are at a standstill, how many are awaiting a step, what time limits are approaching, how many sets of proceedings have met with an objection, what amounts are affected or what issues arise most frequently are questions that ought to be answerable without manually reconstructing the portfolio.
A good monitoring system does not replace individual knowledge of a case. It makes it possible to pinpoint immediately where attention needs to be paid.
If the number of objections in a given category increases significantly, there may be a legal problem that makes it advisable to review the strategy. If certain matters remain too long at one stage, an organisational difficulty may be emerging. If one and the same exception recurs, the initial classification criterion may need to be changed.
This supervisory capability requires important steps to leave a trace. It must be possible to know when an item of data was changed, who took a decision, what document was used and what the outcome was.
The more automated the process, the more important it is to be able to reconstruct afterwards what happened.
4.Scale amplifies efficiency, and error too
A mistake in one file affects that matter. An incorrect rule built into a system may be reproduced hundreds or thousands of times before it is detected.
That is why volume case management needs quality controls of its own. A new automation must be tested before being applied generally. A change of template must be recorded. A change in the legal criterion applied must make it possible to know which matters may be affected.
Version control takes on an importance that may look purely technological, but it has very concrete legal consequences. If the criterion applied to a given category changes, we must be able to know which files were handled under the previous criterion, which of them remain open and in which of them some step may need to be reviewed.
The same is true of documents. A template may be appropriate at the start of a portfolio and later need amending. Where there are thousands of sets of proceedings, it is not enough to replace one document file with another. It is important to be able to determine which version was used in each matter and whether the change introduced affects earlier files.
Scale therefore increases the need for rigour in the prior design. An organisation can achieve great efficiencies by correctly applying a criterion to thousands of matters, but that same technological capability can multiply the effects of a wrong decision.
5.Data also generate legal knowledge
Structured management offers something that a set of isolated files can hardly provide: comparative information.
Where numerous similar matters are being handled, it is possible to know which arguments the other side uses most frequently, which categories end in settlement, where documentary problems are concentrated, which steps generate the most issues or which circumstances particularly increase the complexity of the proceedings.
That knowledge should not stop at a statistic.
If many claims run into the same problem, it may be advisable to review the contract or the business process that lies behind them. If a particular class of file systematically gives rise to a well-founded objection, the criteria applied may need to be changed before further proceedings are commenced.
A portfolio can thus become a source of knowledge about the very origin of the litigation.
This possibility allows volume case management not to confine itself to handling existing disputes. It can also help to reduce future ones. The information obtained from numerous matters makes it possible to detect patterns that an individual file would hardly reveal.
6.Technology and judgement must occupy different places
Technology can organise documents, complete fields, monitor dates, generate certain drafts, produce alerts and classify events. Genuinely legal decisions continue to require judgement.
To sue or not to sue, to accept a proposal, to amend the relief sought, to assess the sufficiency of the evidence or to change the strategy for an entire portfolio are not mere movements within a workflow.
The purpose of automating repetitive tasks is precisely to free up professional capacity for these decisions. If a lawyer spends a significant part of their time moving data between systems or manually checking hundreds of dates that can be reliably monitored by technology, they are applying legal knowledge to an activity that does not need it.
Managing volume without diluting quality is a matter of striking the right balance. The system should take care of whatever can be carried out uniformly, predictably and under control. The lawyer should step in when a question arises that calls for interpretation, assessment of risk or a strategic decision.
Volume legal case management can be regarded as genuinely under control when it makes it possible to answer simple questions at any time. What has happened in a matter, why a particular decision was adopted, what the next step is, when it is due and whether there is any issue outstanding.
And, as regards the portfolio as a whole, it must make it possible to answer other equally important questions: what is working, where the exceptions arise and whether the strategy initially designed remains appropriate.
When those answers are available, technology is genuinely at the service of the law. When they are not, we have probably done no more than replace a physical archive with a digital one, without solving the real problem posed by working at scale.
