The lifecycle

Every matter moves through one lifecycle with two sides. The funnel is the conversion side, winning the engagement. The pipeline is the delivery side, doing the work. The boundary between them is a single event: the signed engagement letter.

Seen end to end, a matter is one continuous thread from inquiry to closing:

The ten named stages sit along that thread, five on each side of the signed letter.

Funnel stages

Contact rows show how the inquiry began: Staff entry, Public intake, or Website inquiry for one that came in through the firm's own site (see website inquiries). Where the origin cannot be confirmed, the row says Origin unavailable. These labels describe the original inquiry, not the latest activity.

Pipeline stages

Stage is derived, not maintained

Stages compute from recorded facts: a submitted form, a confirmed booking, a signed letter, a shared document set. Nobody drags cards to keep the board honest. When a step doesn't apply or an outside system doesn't report an event (a consultation that happened off the books, for example), staff record the fact directly, with an action like Mark consulted, and the stage follows.

Where a stage depends on the client, it waits for the whole of what was asked. A matter leaves Discovery when every questionnaire currently outstanding on it has come in, not when the first one does: a joint matter whose forms are half in stays put rather than moving on because the quicker spouse was quick, and so does a matter running a second plan for someone other than its client, whose other questionnaire is still owed. The matter's milestones record Intake ready at the moment the last one lands, and the stage moves on from Discovery.

The crossing happens once. A package attached before it puts its questionnaires into what the matter is waiting for; a package attached after drafting has begun adds real work, which shows up in the Collect lane, but doesn't send the matter back to Discovery. Staff can still move a matter on deliberately, which is the point of recording a fact directly.

How a matter ends

Closing a matter records two separate things: that it's closed, and how it ended. The platform asks rather than guessing. Work completed and didn't proceed are both ordinary outcomes, and which one it was is a fact the firm will want years later, so it's an answer staff give, never something inferred from the stage a matter happened to be sitting in.

Wrapping up through the disengagement letter asks the same question in the same words: work completed, didn't proceed, or leave the matter open for now.

Neither outcome is a one-way door. Any closed matter can be reopened in place, whatever its outcome, and the confirmation says so plainly. A late delivery, a document nobody noticed was missing, or a plain misclick is a reopen away rather than a support request.

One thing the close checks for you: if documents are still shared with the client but were never marked done, the close dialog says so. It doesn't block the close, and nothing is flipped on the client's behalf. It simply raises the loose end at the moment it costs one click to tie off, instead of leaving the client with something outstanding that no one can clear.

Setting matters aside

Two overlays exist outside the stage ladder:

• Archive sets a matter aside reversibly: a prospect who didn't proceed, a client who paused indefinitely. Archived matters keep their history and can be reopened in place.
• On hold freezes an active matter without moving it. It keeps its stage and resumes where it stood.

Setting aside and outcome are different facts. Archiving hides a matter from the working board; the outcome says how the engagement ended. A matter can be one without being the other.