One Shape for Every Matter: How a Plan Is Built

A matter plan is only useful to software if it has a predictable shape, and only useful to a practitioner if that shape matches how the work really runs. Today we finalised the data structure every plan on the network will share. This post sets out the rules.

Four Levels, Always

• Matter type: the kind of work and the client's role in it, such as Divorce (Sole Applicant).
• Stages: the major phases, from intake to finalisation.
• Milestones: the points within a stage that must be reached before the next can start.
• Tasks: the individual actions, each with its own guidance, links and documents.

No plan skips a level and no plan adds one. That consistency is what lets a practice management system import any plan on the network with the same code.

The Title Is a Name, Not a Description

A plan title takes the form Matter Type (Party Role) and nothing else. The area of law, the process type, the country and the state all live in their own structured fields, classified against the SALI Legal Matter Specification Standard. Putting them in the title as well would duplicate data, and duplicated data drifts.

Forks Instead of Copies

When a matter runs differently in a particular situation, such as a divorce with minor children or a contested hearing, we do not write a new plan from scratch. We fork the parent. The fork keeps the parent's title and carries a short label describing the variation, so the relationship between the two is always visible and a correction to one can be checked against the other.