Everything a matter needs, in one place.

Matters, deadlines and court rules

The matter is the centre of everything: its people, dates, documents, tasks, notes and time are all one click away.

Practice management

• Matters with stages, matter types, key dates and a responsible attorney
• Clients and a firm-wide contacts directory
• Conflict search across clients, parties and prospects
• Tasks with quick entry, tags and saved views
• Task sets and stage templates per matter type
• Automations: when this happens, if that's true, do this
• Pipeline board of matter stages
• Leads, website enquiry forms and online intake questionnaires
• Search across matters, clients, notes, file names and the text inside files
• A dashboard you arrange yourself, preset reports and CSV export
• Reports emailed weekly or monthly
• Spreadsheet import with column mapping, preview and undo

Deadlines and the calendar

• Court-rule tables calculate deadlines from a trigger date, for 52 jurisdictions (state-level and federal rules)
• Each deadline shows the rule it comes from and why it falls on that day
• Change the trigger date and the deadlines that depend on it are recalculated
• Court holidays and weekend roll-forward
• Court e-filing notice emails read into proposed deadlines for your approval
• Scheduled checks of public court case pages, with an alert when something changes
• Reminders on the dashboard, by email and by push notification
• Firm calendar with up to six people side by side, and a day docket PDF
• Client booking pages for meetings
• Calendar export (.ics); Outlook calendar and mail filing once you connect Microsoft 365
• Google Workspace sign-in, Drive and Calendar Coming soon

Rule coverage is at the state and federal level; individual courts' local rules aren't all included yet.

Documents and court forms

Draft from the matter's own data, check the result, and file it back on the matter.

• Word templates filled in from the matter
• Optional and alternative clauses, and a clause library
• Document packages generated in one go, with a combined PDF
• Official court forms for 53 jurisdictions, filled in from the matter, with checks that the edition is current
• Compare two versions: a Word redline with tracked changes, or a redline PDF
• Proofreading checks for definitions, cross-references, numbering, names and citations
• Repair of broken numbering, cross-references and tables of contents
• Metadata clean-up before a document goes out
• Pleading paper, captions and counsel blocks
• DRAFT stamps on Word or PDF
• Files kept on each matter, with their text (including scanned pages, after OCR) searchable
• Emails filed on the matter with their attachments

OwlPDF

A full PDF workbench in the browser, working on the matter's files. Your original is kept as it was; your work is saved as a new file.

• View, search, and reorganise pages: rotate, extract, split, insert and combine
• Edit text in place
• Comments, highlights, notes and drawing
• Fill forms, and build fillable forms
• Redaction, including search patterns, that removes the content underneath, not just covers it
• Remove hidden data before sending
• OCR for scanned documents, with deskew and clean-up
• Convert to PDF, and export PDF to Word, text and other formats
• Compress and optimise
• Passwords and permissions
• Bates numbering, headers, footers and watermarks
• Certificate-based digital signatures
• Compare two PDFs
• Batch actions across many files
• Accessibility checks and fixes
• Split a scanned stack into documents and file each one on its matter
• Outlook .msg and .eml emails to PDF

OwlDraft

Edit a matter's Word documents in the browser, without downloading them first.

• Edit in the browser. Open a .docx from the matter's files, edit it and save. Our own Word engine runs inside your browser.
• Nothing is lost on save. Only what you changed is rewritten. A file you open and save without changes comes back byte for byte.
• Every save is a new version. Earlier versions are kept and numbered; nothing is overwritten.
• No silent collisions. If a colleague saved a newer version while you were working, you're told, and can keep your work as a copy.
• Your firm decides. An administrator turns the editor on in Settings.

OwlSheets Coming soon

A spreadsheet in the platform, for the schedules, inventories and calculations that live alongside a matter.

OwlSheets is in development. It's built on the same principle as OwlDraft: open the Excel files you already have and save them back without damaging what you didn't touch. Early work includes dragging rows into a new order with every formula following them. We'll list what it does here when it ships.

Ask Barnaby

An AI assistant for the matter in front of you, run under your firm's rules.

What Barnaby does today

• Answers questions about the matter you're on, from its overview, files, deadlines, people, tasks, calendar, notes and time entries
• Reads the text of the matter's documents and cites the file and page it used
• Works as you: it sees only what your role and the firm's ethical walls let you see
• Reads; it doesn't change anything, send anything or contact anyone
• Drafting, redlines and PDF work that you approve before anything is saved Coming soon

The controls you hold

• Off until an administrator turns it on
• Zero-data-retention models only, enforced on every request
• Choose which roles may use it
• Mark a client "No AI" and Barnaby stays out of their matters
• Files under a protective order are excluded unless a lawyer opts them in
• A monthly budget for the firm and a cap per person
• Conversations deleted after 90 days (you can change it)
• Prompt logging off unless you turn it on

What's due on this matter in the next two weeks, and where does each date come from?

Two deadlines fall in the next 14 days. Each one shows its trigger date and the rule it's calculated from, and I'll point you to the file and page for anything I quote from the documents.

Illustration of the kind of question Barnaby answers; not a recorded conversation.

Time, billing and trust accounting

Capture the time, apply the right rate and keep the trust account straight.

• Timers, quick time entry and suggested time from the work you did that day
• Billable expenses on matters
• Rates by person, role, matter or client
• Flat-fee tracking against the quote, and hybrid fee arrangements
• Trust journal and client ledgers, with monthly three-way reconciliation
• Minimum-balance alerts on retainers
• LEDES 1998B export and UTBMS task codes
• Outside-counsel billing guideline checks as time is entered
• Invoices: from unbilled time and expenses, with numbering, PDF and overdue tracking Coming soon

Online card and bank payments are not part of MatterOwl today.

Client portal and e-signature

Give clients one secure place to see where things stand, swap documents and sign.

• Client portal opened with a link and an emailed six-digit code
• Share chosen files with the client
• Two-way secure messages
• Client uploads that land on the matter
• Matter status in plain words, with the next step
• Questionnaires and client checklists
• E-signature from a matter's documents, up to 10 signers in turn, with reminders; the signed copy is filed back
• Sealed signed PDF with a certificate
• Limited view for a client's named trusted contacts
• Portal in English and Spanish

Tools for your practice area

Practice-specific screens appear on the matter when they apply, and stay out of the way when they don't.

• Trusts and estates: estate plans, asset and trust-funding ledgers, probate stages and forms, gift tracking and a Form 709 preparer
• Litigation: discovery, depositions, privilege logs, exhibits and chronologies
• Personal injury: medical records, liens and settlement statements
• Criminal defence: speedy-trial clocks and sentencing calculators
• Intellectual property: patent and trademark deadlines, with USPTO office-action notices read into proposed deadlines
• Government and administrative: public records, open meetings and rulemaking clocks