Feature · Legal Workflow Automation

Legal workflow automation software that keeps the matter moving and the audit trail clean.

Client intake, conflict-of-interest checks, matter opening, document assembly, deadline and statute-of-limitation tracking, task delegation to associates and paralegals, and billable-hour handoffs to the practice management system, all on one audited workflow surface.

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The legal operations problem

The matter is where every law-firm process breaks.

A law firm runs on matters. A matter opens with intake, moves through conflict check, matter opening, document assembly, discovery, filings, deadlines, and billing. Most firms run this on a stack of disconnected tools: email for intake, a conflicts database that nobody updates, a document management system that holds files, a case management tool that holds matters, Outlook calendars that hold deadlines, and a billing system that holds time entries. Information falls through the gaps between tools. A missed statute of limitations is a malpractice exposure. A missed conflict check is an ethics violation. A missed deadline is a sanction. Legal workflow automation is the mechanism that threads the matter across the tools so nothing falls through. Strkr ships legal-specific workflow primitives; intake forms with required disclosures, conflict-check hooks, matter-opening automations, document assembly, deadline watchers, task delegation, billable-hour capture; on an audited canvas with the retention controls legal and compliance teams need. The sections below describe the primitives and how they compose.

The handoff problem

Email, spreadsheets, and PDFs do not thread.

Intake comes in by phone or email. The receptionist writes notes. The notes travel by email to the conflicts clerk. The clerk checks the database manually. The partner approves by reply. The paralegal opens the matter. The thread fragments across inboxes. A dropped email means a dropped matter.

The conflicts exposure

An unchecked matter is an ethics risk.

An intake without a conflicts check against the full client and adverse-party history is an ethics violation under every US jurisdiction's rules of professional conduct. The manual conflicts check is error-prone and inconsistent across associates. Automation enforces the check as a required gate before matter opens.

The deadlines exposure

A missed statute is a malpractice claim.

Deadlines live in head and in calendars. A paralegal leaves and the deadlines leave with them. The firm's malpractice carrier audits the deadline practice annually. Automated deadline watchers against jurisdiction-specific rules move the exposure from human memory to a system of record.

The billable-hour leakage

Work done but not captured.

An associate works a matter for three hours and forgets to enter time. The firm loses the revenue. Workflow automation captures time entries from the activities that already happened: a document edit, an email thread, a call log. The partner reviews and approves; the time entry does not require retyping.

The document assembly tax

Retyping the same clauses on every matter.

An engagement letter, a retainer agreement, a non-disclosure, a stipulation; these are template documents that associates assemble by copy-paste from prior matters. Automation generates them from the matter data on open, inserting the parties, the fee structure, and the scope.

The audit requirement

Every matter action lands in the log.

The audit trail serves ethics review, malpractice response, internal partner review, and bar inquiries. Strkr ships an immutable audit log that captures every change on every matter record; who did what, when, and from where. The retention posture is configurable per matter type.

Confidentiality and privilege

Matter-level access with privilege tagging.

A matter is accessible to the partner, the associate, the paralegal, and the staff assigned to it; and nobody else. The access list is matter-scoped. Privilege-tagged documents enforce the attorney-client privilege boundary against external sharing.

The real-time collaboration need

The matter team works the same record.

The partner, the associate, the paralegal, and the client-facing staff see the same matter in real time. Updates land in seconds. Task assignments route to the right person. The matter stops being a game of telephone across inboxes.

What legal workflow automation actually does

Threads the matter across every tool.

Intake form → conflicts check → matter open → document assembly → deadline watchers → task delegation → time capture → billing handoff. Each primitive runs as a workflow node. The matter moves through the sequence automatically with human review at the required gates.

Intake and conflicts automation

From inbound inquiry to opened matter in one flow.

The intake-to-matter path is where law-firm workflow starts. A prospective client calls, emails, or submits a web form. The firm needs to capture the client data, run a conflicts check, route to the right partner, generate an engagement letter, and open the matter; in that order and without dropping information between steps. The elements below describe how Strkr automates the intake-to-matter path.

Intake form

Required disclosures and jurisdiction fields.

A branded web intake form captures client name, contact info, matter type, opposing parties, jurisdiction, and the required disclosures (fee structure acknowledgment, no attorney-client relationship until retained). The form validates jurisdiction-specific required fields before submit.

Inbound email parsing

Email intake extracted to structured fields.

Intake emails to the firm address parse into structured intake records. The AI extracts prospective client name, matter type, opposing parties, and the asserted facts into fields on the intake record. The associate reviews the extraction and corrects before advancing.

Call-in intake

Reception captures the call on the record.

Reception answers an intake call, opens an intake record in Strkr, captures the fields in real time during the call, and routes to the on-duty intake attorney with a Slack notification. The time-to-callback drops because the handoff happens on the record, not in email.

Conflicts check

Automated run against the master database.

On intake submit, the workflow runs a conflicts check against the master client and adverse-party database. The check matches on legal name, aliases, DBA records, parent-subsidiary relationships, and historical representations. The result (clear, flagged, hard-block) lands on the intake record.

Conflicts resolution

A flagged intake routes to the ethics partner.

A flagged conflicts result does not block automatically; it routes to the ethics partner for review. The partner reviews the flagged matches, documents the resolution (waiver, decline, screening), and approves or declines the intake. The resolution lands on the audit trail.

Prospective client routing

By matter type and partner availability.

A clear intake routes to the matching partner based on matter type (corporate, litigation, real estate, estate planning), practice area availability, and workload balancing. The partner receives the intake in their queue with the asserted facts, the client contact, and the suggested next action.

Engagement letter generation

Templated with the intake data.

Once the partner accepts, the workflow generates the engagement letter from a template with the intake data interpolated: client name, matter description, fee structure, scope limits, communication expectations. The letter sends to the client for e-signature.

Matter opening

Matter record created with number assignment.

On e-signature of the engagement letter, the workflow opens the matter: assigns a matter number in the firm's numbering scheme, creates the matter record, provisions the matter folder in document management, sets up the matter team access, and starts the deadline watchers for the matter type.

Intake-to-matter audit trail

Every step logged with timestamps.

The full intake-to-matter sequence lands in the audit log: intake submit time, conflicts check result, ethics review (if required), partner acceptance, engagement letter sent, signed, matter opened. The trail supports ethics review, carrier audits, and partner oversight.

Matter workflow, documents, and deadlines

The matter moves across phases on a tracked canvas.

Once a matter opens, the actual work begins: drafting, discovery, filings, negotiation, trial preparation, closing. Each matter type has its own phase model and its own deadline rules. Strkr lets the firm model matter workflows per practice area, generate documents from matter data, watch jurisdiction-specific deadlines, and delegate tasks to the matter team; all on one tracked canvas. The elements below describe how matter workflow operates in practice.

Matter phase model

Phases configured per practice area.

A litigation matter runs through phases: pre-filing, discovery, motion practice, settlement, trial. A corporate matter runs through: due diligence, negotiation, closing. Each firm configures the phase model per practice area. The matter moves through phases with phase-exit checklists.

Document assembly

Templates with matter data interpolated.

The document library holds template documents per practice area: NDAs, retainer agreements, complaints, motions, discovery requests, closing documents. The assembly engine interpolates matter data (parties, jurisdiction, dates, scope) into the templates on demand.

Document version control

Every draft tracked with the author.

Every document edit creates a version with the editor, the timestamp, and a change summary. The partner reviews the version history before executing. External shares (to opposing counsel or clients) carry the version pinned so the recipient does not see later drafts.

E-signature flow

DocuSign and PandaDoc natively integrated.

Matter documents send for e-signature through the configured provider (DocuSign or PandaDoc). The signed version returns to the matter folder. The signing event lands on the matter timeline. Reminders fire if the signer has not signed within a configurable window.

Deadline watchers

Jurisdiction-specific rules on every matter.

Matter type and jurisdiction determine the deadline watchers that activate: statute of limitations, filing deadlines, response deadlines, service deadlines. The watchers fire reminders at configurable intervals (30 days, 14 days, 7 days, 48 hours) and escalate on no acknowledgment.

Court calendar sync

Hearings, filings, and depositions on one calendar.

The matter calendar pulls hearings, filing deadlines, depositions, and client meetings onto one view. The partner reviews the week ahead on one screen rather than reconciling three different calendar surfaces. Updates sync to Outlook and Google Calendar bidirectionally.

Task delegation

Assigned to associate or paralegal with SLA.

The partner delegates discrete tasks (research, drafting, discovery responses) to associates and paralegals with a due date and a priority. The assignee receives the task in their queue with the context link to the matter and the attached relevant documents.

Status reporting

Weekly matter status to the client.

A weekly matter status update generates automatically from the matter activity (completed tasks, upcoming deadlines, open questions). The partner reviews, edits, and sends. The client gets a predictable weekly rhythm. The status also lands on the client portal for transparency.

Discovery tracking

Document productions and responses on the matter.

Discovery productions and responses track as structured records on the matter: what was requested, what was produced, what was objected to, what is outstanding. The tracker surfaces discovery deficiencies before the meet-and-confer rather than during.

Billing, time capture, and client portal

Billable hours in, invoices out, portal transparency.

The firm bills on time. Time capture is the chronic point of leakage. Associates forget to enter time. Partners find a day of work missing from the matter when they review for invoicing. The client gets an unexpected bill and disputes the entries. Workflow automation closes the leakage by capturing time from the activities that already happened and feeding the practice management system the structured entries. The client portal surfaces matter activity, invoices, and deadlines to the client so questions resolve before they become disputes. The elements below describe how the billing and portal integration operates.

Activity-based time capture

Document edits, emails, calls become candidate entries.

The time capture engine watches matter activity: document edits over 15 minutes, email threads over 10 minutes, logged calls, task completions. Each activity surfaces as a candidate time entry on the attorney's daily timesheet with the matter, the duration, and a draft description.

Approval before export

The attorney reviews before entries flow out.

Captured entries do not post to billing automatically. The attorney reviews the daily timesheet, edits durations and descriptions, approves or discards each entry, and exports approved entries to the practice management system in a batch. The attorney stays in control of what bills.

Practice management handoff

Clio, PracticePanther, and MyCase integrations.

Approved time entries export to the configured practice management system (Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, Rocket Matter) through the native integration. The entries land on the matter in the PM system, ready for invoice generation. No retyping, no CSV reconciliation.

Fixed-fee tracking

Scope budget vs actual time per phase.

For fixed-fee matters, the matter carries a scope budget per phase. The dashboard surfaces budget-vs-actual at the phase level. A matter trending over budget surfaces the partner before the fee commitment eats the margin. The scope renegotiation conversation happens with data.

Trust accounting integration

Client retainers tracked per matter.

Trust account balances per matter surface on the matter detail. The partner sees how much retainer remains and whether a replenishment request is due. The data flows from the PM system's trust ledger via the integration; the attorney does not reconcile two sources of truth.

Client portal

Matter transparency on a branded surface.

The client portal gives the client access to their matter: upcoming deadlines, document status, invoice history, outstanding tasks on their side. The portal is matter-scoped so the client sees only their matter. The branded surface carries the firm's brand, not Strkr's.

Client messaging

Thread by matter, not by email.

Client-attorney messaging threads by matter on the portal rather than scattering across email. Every message lands on the matter timeline with the sender and the timestamp. The partner reviewing the matter sees the full client conversation history in context.

Invoice presentation

Draft to client review to payment.

The partner reviews the draft invoice from the PM system, edits as needed, and sends to the client through the portal. The client reviews on the portal, raises questions in the portal thread, and pays by card or ACH when satisfied. Payment events return to the matter record.

Collections workflow

Aged receivable automations.

Invoices aged beyond the firm's terms (30, 60, 90 days) trigger collections workflows: reminder emails from the partner, escalation to the managing partner, final-notice letters. The workflow runs the same primitives as every other automation on the tenant.

Compliance posture for law firms

The audit trail, retention, privilege, and ethics controls.

A law firm's workflow software has to meet professional responsibility obligations: client confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, document retention, data residency, breach notification. Strkr ships the compliance controls natively; matter-scoped access, privilege-tagged documents, configurable retention, SOC 2 Type II infrastructure, immutable audit logs. The elements below describe the compliance posture a managing partner, an ethics counsel, or a general counsel will want to see on a workflow evaluation.

Matter-scoped access

The matter team sees the matter.

Every matter has an explicit access list: the partner, the associates, the paralegals, and the staff assigned to it. Nobody outside the list can read the matter. The access list manages per matter, with ethics screens enforced for conflicts resolution.

Privilege tagging

Documents marked privileged enforce the boundary.

Documents tagged privileged under attorney-client, work product, or common interest doctrine enforce the privilege boundary: external sharing requires explicit partner override with a logged reason. The tag travels with the document across every surface.

Retention schedules

Per matter type and jurisdiction.

The firm configures retention per matter type: active duration, closed-matter retention (typically 7 to 10 years for most jurisdictions), permanent-retention records (estate planning, wills). The engine purges records on schedule with a partner approval gate.

Audit log

Immutable, searchable, exportable.

Every action on every matter; read, edit, download, share, delete, tag, assign; lands in the audit log with the actor, the timestamp, and the IP address. The log is immutable, searchable, and exportable. Carrier audits, ethics inquiries, and malpractice responses run against the log.

SOC 2 Type II

Underlying infrastructure certified.

Strkr runs on SOC 2 Type II infrastructure. The attestation documents the information security controls and the operating effectiveness of those controls over a twelve-month audit period. The report is available under NDA for firm infosec review.

Encryption

At rest and in transit.

All data encrypts at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). Encryption keys manage through KMS with per-tenant isolation. The posture satisfies most state bar technology competency guidance (ABA Model Rule 1.1 comment 8).

Data residency

US, EU, or Canada tenancy.

The firm elects the data residency on provisioning: US, EU, or Canada. Matter data stays in the selected region including backups. The residency election supports cross-border matter work where client data cannot leave a jurisdiction.

Breach notification

Within 72 hours of confirmed incident.

Confirmed security incidents trigger breach notifications to affected firms within 72 hours. The notification includes scope, affected records, and remediation. The posture meets GDPR Article 33, most US state breach laws, and the ABA Formal Opinion 483 guidance on breach response.

Ethical walls

Conflicts screens enforce at the technical layer.

When ethics counsel establishes a conflicts screen (the "ethical wall") for a attorney or team on a matter, the screen enforces at the technical layer: screened users cannot access the matter, cannot see search results pointing to it, and cannot see activity on it in dashboards.

Legal workflow automation software that holds the matter together end to end.

Intake, conflicts, matter opening, document assembly, deadline tracking, task delegation, time capture, billing handoff, client portal, and the full compliance posture; all on one audited surface with native Clio and PandaDoc integrations.

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Common questions

What buyers ask about this feature.

What is legal workflow automation software and how is it different from case management software?

Legal workflow automation software is the layer that threads a matter across the firm's tools; intake, conflicts, document management, calendaring, task delegation, time capture, billing; so the matter progresses without human handoffs falling through email. Case management software (Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase) is the system of record for matter data, time entries, trust accounting, and billing. The two layers complement each other: the case management system holds the matter, the workflow automation system runs the processes that move the matter through its lifecycle. Strkr runs natively with Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, and Rocket Matter through native integrations, so time entries from Strkr workflow activity post to the case management system for invoicing while the matter work itself (intake, drafting, deadlines, client portal) happens on the Strkr surface.

How does Strkr automate the conflicts check during intake?

On intake submission, the workflow runs an automated conflicts check against the firm's master client and adverse-party database. The check matches on legal name, known aliases, DBA records, parent-subsidiary relationships from the enrichment layer, and historical representations stored on prior matters. The result lands on the intake record with one of three states: clear (no matches, intake advances automatically), flagged (one or more potential matches, routes to the ethics partner for review), or hard-block (a exclusion list match, intake declines automatically with a logged reason). The ethics partner reviewing a flagged intake can document the resolution (waiver obtained, decline with reason, screening established) directly on the intake record. The full conflicts review lands on the audit trail for ethics inquiries, carrier audits, and bar reviews.

Does Strkr track jurisdiction-specific deadlines like statute of limitations?

Yes. Each matter carries a matter type and a jurisdiction. On matter opening, the deadline watchers activate based on the matter-type and jurisdiction combination: statute of limitations deadlines, filing deadlines, response deadlines, service deadlines, specific court-rule deadlines. The watchers fire reminders at configurable intervals (typically 30 days, 14 days, 7 days, and 48 hours before the deadline) and escalate on no acknowledgment to the responsible partner. The firm configures the deadline library per practice area; a national firm can run different deadline rules for state court work in California versus state court work in New York. The deadline posture satisfies most malpractice carriers' expectations around systematic deadline tracking, which has been a leading audit focus since the mid-2010s.

How does billable time capture work and does it integrate with Clio and other practice management systems?

Billable time capture watches matter activity in Strkr: document edits over 15 minutes, email threads over 10 minutes, logged calls, completed tasks. Each activity surfaces as a candidate time entry on the attorney's daily timesheet with the matter, the duration, and a draft description inferred from the activity type. The attorney reviews the timesheet daily, edits durations and descriptions, approves or discards each entry, and exports approved entries to the configured practice management system in a batch. Native integrations exist for Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, and Rocket Matter. Approved entries land on the matter in the practice management system ready for invoice generation. No retyping between systems. The attorney stays in control of what bills; Strkr captures candidate entries, the attorney approves what actually posts.

What compliance posture does Strkr provide for law firms?

Strkr runs on SOC 2 Type II certified infrastructure. All data encrypts at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.3, with per-tenant KMS-isolated keys. Matter-scoped access controls restrict access to the assigned matter team only. Privilege-tagged documents enforce the attorney-client and work-product privilege boundary against external sharing. Configurable retention schedules support per-matter-type retention (typically 7 to 10 years closed-matter retention for most US jurisdictions, permanent for estate planning records). An immutable audit log captures every read, edit, download, share, delete, and assignment on every matter record with the actor, timestamp, and IP address. Data residency elects at provisioning (US, EU, or Canada) with matter data staying in region including backups. Breach notification within 72 hours of a confirmed incident meets GDPR Article 33, most US state breach laws, and ABA Formal Opinion 483 guidance. Ethical walls enforce at the technical layer when ethics counsel establishes a conflicts screen for a attorney or team on a matter.

Can we use Strkr's legal workflow automation with our existing case management software?

Yes. Strkr positions as the workflow automation layer that runs on top of the firm's existing case management system (Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, Rocket Matter, PCLaw, or others with public APIs). Native integrations handle time entry export, matter data sync, client contact sync, invoice reference, and trust account balance read. The firm keeps the case management system as the system of record for the matter and bills; Strkr adds the intake automation, conflicts check gating, document assembly, deadline tracking, task delegation, client portal, and messaging that most case management systems ship as thinner surfaces. For firms running on a system without a public API, Strkr can run as the full workflow + CRM layer with time entries exporting via CSV. The firm picks the integration posture that fits the existing stack.

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