Matter Statuses

Status is a standard field that comes built-in to your Lawmatics account, and every matter will fall into one of three options for their status. The 3 options for status are as follows:

PNC: Stands for Potential New Client. This matter status is used for any leads/prospects in your CRM. For the most part, these are the matters going through your intake pipeline as well as any of your intake automations.

Hired: Once you convert a PNC, or in other words, once a lead has hired your firm, the matter will change to the Hired status. 

Lost: Use this status for any PNCs who decide not to hire your firm, and you no longer want to consider them an active PNC/lead.

Note, when a matter changes between these 3 statuses all of their information remains present on their matter, only the status changes. This means that when a PNC either converts or becomes lost, you can still view the full history of their activity timeline, files, notes, etc.

You can also change between the statuses at any time, so if you change a PNC's status to Lost, and then they end up reengaging down the road, you can always edit the status back to PNC, and hopefully eventually convert them to Hired.

You'll find the status field on the Details tab, in the Matter Information section on all of your matters.

While the 3 main statuses of PNC, Hired, and Lost are standard to Lawmatics, you can create custom sub-statuses that will fall under those 3 main categories. To do this, go to settings (gear icon near the top right), and then select Matter Settings from the left sidebar.

To create a sub-status, start by typing the title of the sub-status in the box shown below. Then make sure you select which of the 3 main statuses this sub-status should fall under.

You typically won't need to create many PNC sub-statuses, since you also have your pipeline for managing the step-by-step process of your intake. 

For Hired, it may make sense to your firm to have sub-statuses to differentiate Open vs. Closed cases.

Lastly, we suggest using your Lost sub-statuses to keep track of the specific reason why a PNC did not end up hiring your firm. This is setting you up for great reporting potential down the road, since these lost reasons can be tracked with our native custom reporting.

Any time a new matter is created, it will default to the PNC status. To change the status or to apply one of your custom sub-statuses to a matter, start by going to that matter's profile page, then click the Edit button in the bottom right. You will then be able to select the sub-status from a drop down list in the Status field.

Select the appropriate option from the dropdown as shown in the image above, and then click Save at the bottom.

If you select one of your Lost sub-statuses, for example, not only will that sub-statuses be applied, but the matter will also change to the Lost status overall.

When a PNC has converted, rather than editing the status as shown above, you will instead take a slightly different step. On each PNC matter, you will find a Convert button in the top right corner. If you are using any case management integrations, you will also see a button to sync to your case management software.

When a matter has hired the firm, you will want to click the Convert button. This does three things. 1. It will change the status to Hired automatically. 2. It will sync to your case management software if you have one integrated. 3. The system will log the conversion date and time, and automatically count the days from matter creation to conversion to populate the Days to Close field for this matter.

This is a great way to track conversion metrics by practice area, lead attorney, etc.

Note, clicking the button to Sync to your case management software, will only sync the matter, and it will not track the matter as a conversion. This is used if you want to have the matter created in your case management system before they have actually hired.

FAQ's

Can I create my own custom statuses?

No, the 3 main statuses of PNC, Hired, and Lost can't be customized. But you can create your own custom sub-statuses, found on the Matter Settings page in settings.

How do I create a lead versus a client?
Both of these will be considered a matter in Lawmatics, so you will create a new matter for either. The differentiating factor between a lead and a client will be the Status of that matter. When you first create a new matter, the status will default to PNC (potential new client). For any leads, you will want them to remain in this PNC status until they have hired and become a client. If you are adding in a new matter who is already a client, once you have created their matter, you will go to that matter's profile, and then click the Convert button in the top right to change their status to Hired.
Should I create a contact or a matter when I get a new lead?

New leads (PNCs) should always be created as a matter. Matters are used for any client or potential client, whereas contacts are used for referral partners, colleagues, friends & family, etc.

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