Organizing Contracts Within Matters

You can organize contracts within matters in several ways. For example, you can create a separate matter for each contract, or group multiple contracts in a separate matter for each vendor. The following table outlines several possible approaches, together with the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Approach
Advantages
Disadvantages
Create a matter for each contract
  • You can control access to the specific contract
  • All of the fields in the matter profile will apply only to that contract
  • If you create notes, budgets, etc., they will apply only to that contract
  • If you have a high volume of contracts, you will create a large number of matters
  • You have to complete all of the matter profile fields for each contract, which may be too time consuming for high volumes of contracts
Create a matter for each vendor, and place all contracts with the vendor in that matter
  • Can significantly reduce the number of matters that have to be created
  • Useful organization of contracts within matters
  • Access control is limited to the matter rather than an individual contract
  • All of the fields in the matter profile will not be unique to an individual contract, but will apply to all contracts in that matter
  • The notes, budgets, etc. cannot easily be identified with individual contracts
Create a matter for contracts for each Organizational Unit
  • Can significantly reduce the number of matters that have to be created
  • Useful organization of contracts within matters
  • Organizational structure more likely to correspond to the access of users
  • All of the fields in the matter profile will not be unique to an individual contract, but will apply to all contracts in that matter
  • The notes, budgets, etc. cannot easily be identified with individual contracts