164 terms

The glossary.

Two vocabularies meet on this site: the one lawyers use for running files, and the one Notion uses for building things. Most definitions of either are written by someone who has only ever needed one of them. These are written by someone who needs both.

By Raghav R Handa, practising lawyer23 September 2026

Legal practice

The vocabulary of running files, in the sense a practitioner uses it rather than the sense a software brochure uses it.

Matteralso: file, case: One piece of work for one client, from instruction to closure. It is the unit almost everything else hangs off: time is recorded against it, documents belong to it, deadlines are calculated for it. Getting the matter right as a record — rather than as a folder — is the single decision that determines whether a practice system works. Matter management in Notion
Matter-centric: An architecture where the matter is the central record and everything else relates to it, rather than living in parallel folders organised by document type or by person. The practical test: can you open one place and see every document, date, note, email and pound spent on a file? If the answer needs three systems, it is not matter-centric. Databases for lawyers
Conflict check: Searching everyone you have ever acted for, against, or alongside before taking on new work, to make sure the new instruction does not put you on both sides of something. It is the most common route to professional discipline and the most database-shaped obligation in practice — which is why it belongs in a searchable contacts record rather than in memory. Conflict checks in Notion
Engagement letteralso: client care letter, retainer letter: The document that records what you are doing for the client, on what terms, at what cost, and how to complain. Its contents are the same every time in structure and different every time in detail, which makes it a template generated from the matter's fields rather than a document copied from the last client and edited — the latter being how a previous client's name ends up in a letter.
Retainer: Two different things wearing one word. In the fee sense, money paid in advance and drawn down as work is done — which is client money and belongs in a reconciled trust ledger. In the engagement sense, the agreement itself. If someone is unclear which they mean, it is usually the first.
Client accountalso: trust account, IOLTA: A bank account holding money that belongs to clients rather than to the firm, governed by your regulator's accounts rules and subject to reconciliation and, in many jurisdictions, external examination. The hardest line on this site: it never goes in a general-purpose workspace. Record that a payment happened and which matter it relates to; keep the ledger in software built and audited for it. When not to use Notion
Disbursement: Money the firm lays out on a client's behalf — experts, court fees, records, searches — to be recovered later, or not. A running total per matter is the number that decides whether a case is still worth running, and it is the number most practices discover too late. Disbursements in a PI build
Limitation periodalso: statute of limitations: The window in which a claim must be brought before it is barred. The rules on when it starts, when it pauses and what extends it differ by jurisdiction and by cause of action, and a plausible-looking wrong answer is worse than no answer — which is why this site will store the date you calculated and surface it early, and will not calculate it for you.
Chronology: A dated list of what happened, with a source for each entry. Almost every contested matter turns on one, and almost everyone writes it late, in prose, from a pile of material. Built as rows instead — date, event, source, page — it sorts itself, filters to one witness for cross-examination, and shows you which events nobody has evidenced yet. The chronology is the case
Attendance notealso: file note: A contemporaneous record of a conversation: who was there, what was said, what you advised, what was agreed. The only defence against a disputed account of a meeting, and only useful if written the same day — which means the real problem is making one fast enough to write before you leave the office. File notes in Notion
Precedent: In the drafting sense, a piece of your own approved wording kept for reuse — an indemnity, a limitation clause, a scope paragraph. Distinct from precedent in the case-law sense. A structured clause library is the compounding interest of your own expertise, and most firms re-draft from scratch because the last good version is unfindable. Templates and clause libraries
Undertaking: A personal professional promise, enforceable against you, frequently given in one line of an email on a busy afternoon. Any practitioner should be able to answer immediately: what undertakings are currently outstanding? That is one database and one filtered view, and it is possibly the highest ratio of professional protection to build effort anywhere. The undertakings register
Bundle: The paginated, indexed set of documents put before a court or tribunal. Bundle deadlines are missed considerably more often than hearing dates, largely because the hearing goes in the diary and the direction made at the last hearing does not.
Docketing: Recording court deadlines and calculating the dates that follow from them. In high-volume litigation this is done from a rules engine that knows each jurisdiction's timetable — genuinely hard software, and one of the clearest reasons a litigation practice keeps its practice management subscription. Where Clio wins
WIPalso: work in progress: Work that has been done and recorded but not yet billed. High WIP is a cash-flow problem disguised as a productivity statistic, and it is usually the first number a small firm cannot produce on demand.
Realisation rate: The share of recorded time that actually becomes an invoice, after write-offs and courtesy reductions. Paired with collection — the share of invoiced money that arrives — it tells you what an hour of your work is really worth, which is almost always less than your headline rate. The billable hours calculator
Write-off: Recorded time deliberately not billed, whether because it would not stand scrutiny, because the matter was quoted flat, or because of the relationship. Tracking write-offs by matter type is how a firm discovers which work it is quietly subsidising.
Closing checklistalso: completion checklist, CP checklist: The list of every document, condition and signature needed to complete a transaction, with who is responsible and its status. Usually a Word table circulated in versions; better as a database with one row per item, filtered by party, status or condition precedent. Notion for corporate lawyers
Hourly rate: The price of a unit of lawyer time. It is a list price, not an income: what you actually earn per hour is the rate multiplied by the share of your time that is recorded, billed and collected. Billable hours calculator
Billable hour: A unit of time that can be charged to a client. The hard part is rarely the rate; it is capturing the hour at all, which is why time-recording habits matter more than any billing feature. Tracking billable hours in Notion
Fixed feealso: flat fee: A price agreed for a defined scope of work, regardless of the time it takes. It rewards efficiency and punishes scope creep, so it only works if the scope is written down and changes to it are priced.
Contingency feealso: no win, no fee, conditional fee: A fee payable only if the matter succeeds, usually as a share of what is recovered. Whether it is allowed, in which practice areas and up to what level is set by each jurisdiction's rules, so read yours before offering one.
Conditional fee agreementalso: CFA: A term used in some jurisdictions, notably England and Wales, for an agreement under which part or all of the lawyer's fee depends on the outcome. Its permitted forms and required wording are regulated; check your regulator.
Alternative fee arrangementalso: AFA: Any pricing model other than straight hourly billing: fixed fees, capped fees, subscriptions, success fees and hybrids. Tracking time still matters under an AFA, because it is how you learn whether the price was right.
Advance fee: Money paid by a client before the work is done. Depending on how it is agreed and on local rules, it may have to be held in a client account until earned, so do not treat it as the firm's money by default. Trust accounting and Notion
Fee estimatealso: costs estimate, cost estimate: A forecast of what a matter will cost. Good ones state their assumptions and the events that would change them; a number with no assumptions is a promise you will later be held to.
Matter budget: A planned limit on hours or fees for a matter, against which actual time is tracked. Its value is the early warning: a matter 80 percent through its budget at the halfway point is a conversation to have now, not at the final bill. Legal project management in Notion
Utilisation ratealso: utilization: The share of someone's working hours that are billable. A high figure is not automatically good: it can mean no time is being invested in the business, in know-how or in rest.
Collection rate: The share of billed amounts that is actually paid. It is the last of three leaks in the path from work done to money received, after capture and billing. Billable hours calculator
Accounts receivablealso: debtors, A/R: Money clients owe for work already billed. Ageing it (how long each invoice has been outstanding) is the simplest way to see a collections problem before it becomes a cash problem.
Trust ledger: The record of one client's money held in a client or trust account: every receipt and payment, and the running balance. Each client has their own, and the sum of them must reconcile to the account. Trust accounting and Notion
Three-way reconciliationalso: trust reconciliation: A check that three records agree: the bank statement balance, the firm's trust account balance, and the total of all the individual client ledgers. A mismatch means money is in the wrong place or a record is wrong, and it must be found.
IOLTA: Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts: a United States arrangement under which interest on pooled client funds that are small or held briefly goes to fund legal aid and related causes, not to the lawyer or the client. Rules differ by state; other countries have different schemes. IOLTA basics
Commingling: Mixing client money with the firm's own money. It is one of the most serious trust accounting failures, and it happens easily with a single shared account or an unrecorded transfer. Why Notion is not a trust ledger
Escrow: Money or documents held by a neutral party until agreed conditions are met, common in property and corporate deals. Who may act as escrow agent, and how the funds must be held, depends on the law and on the lawyer's own rules.
Settlement statementalso: closing statement, completion statement: The document that itemises the money moving in a property transaction: price, loans, fees, credits and the amounts each party pays or receives. It must agree with the contract and the closing checklist, and checking that it does is a core closing task.
Privilegealso: attorney-client privilege, legal professional privilege: A legal protection that stops certain confidential communications between lawyer and client being forced into evidence. It belongs to the communication, not the tool, and it is lost by careless disclosure; its scope differs by jurisdiction. Privilege and Notion
Work productalso: litigation privilege: In some systems, material prepared in anticipation of litigation, protected from disclosure on a different basis from privilege. The names and boundaries differ by jurisdiction, so use the term as your own rules do.
Confidentiality: The professional duty to keep client information secret. It is wider than privilege: it covers information that would never be protected in court, and it applies to the tools and people you use to handle it. Security and confidentiality
Competencealso: duty of competence, technological competence: The duty to have and apply the knowledge, skill and care a matter requires. Many regulators now treat understanding the technology you use, including its risks, as part of it.
Supervisionalso: duty to supervise: The duty to oversee the people and systems that handle client work, including staff, outsourced providers and, increasingly, AI tools. Delegating a task does not delegate responsibility for it.
Conflict of interest: A situation where acting for one client, or for you, would be adverse to another client or compromise your independence. Some can be consented to and some cannot; either way, finding them requires a searchable record of every party. Conflict checks in Notion
Ethical wallalso: Chinese wall, information barrier, screen: An internal barrier that stops information passing between lawyers within a firm, used to manage a conflict. Its acceptability varies by jurisdiction and circumstance, and it is only as good as the access controls and discipline behind it.
Know your clientalso: KYC: Establishing who a client really is and what they want before acting. Regulators in many countries require it, particularly for anti-money-laundering purposes.
Anti-money launderingalso: AML: Rules to stop the proceeds of crime moving through legal and financial services. Where they apply to lawyers, they require verifying clients, recording how, and reporting suspicions; the detail differs by country.
Client due diligencealso: CDD: The process of identifying a client and understanding the nature of the work, and keeping the evidence. The duty is the lawyer's; a database only holds the proof.
Beneficial owner: The real person who ultimately owns or controls a company or trust, as opposed to the name on the register. Identifying them is a standard part of client due diligence.
Non-engagement letteralso: declination letter: A letter telling a person you are not acting for them. It matters because people assume they are your client after an enquiry, and a missed limitation date can follow; a good one also flags that time limits may apply.
Scope of engagement: What the lawyer has agreed to do, and what they have not. A vague scope is the usual root of fee disputes and complaints, and it is why scope changes should be written down as they happen. Engagement tracker in Notion
Scope creep: Work that expands beyond what was agreed without a matching change to the price or timeline. It is a project-management problem and a billing problem at once.
Professional indemnity insurancealso: malpractice insurance, PII: Insurance covering a firm against claims of professional negligence. Whether it is compulsory, and on what terms, depends on the jurisdiction; underwriters often ask how you manage deadlines and conflicts.
Professional negligencealso: malpractice: Failing to meet the standard of a reasonably competent lawyer and causing loss. Missed deadlines are consistently among the leading causes, which is why deadline systems are a risk-management tool, not an admin convenience.
Continuing professional developmentalso: CPD, CLE, continuing legal education: Training a lawyer must undertake and record to keep practising, called continuing legal education in the United States. Requirements and what counts differ by regulator.
Practising certificatealso: licence to practise: The licence, renewed periodically in many jurisdictions, that allows a lawyer to practise. A renewal date is exactly the kind of deadline that belongs in a database with an owner.
Pro bono: Legal work done without charge for people who cannot afford it, or for public-interest causes. Track it like any matter: time recorded, conflicts checked, file closed.
File opening: The steps that turn an accepted enquiry into a matter: conflict check, engagement letter, matter number, identity checks, and a file set up. A checklist keeps them in the same order every time. Client intake in Notion
Matter number: A unique reference for a matter, used on every document and time entry. Pick a format once and never reuse a number; the number is what lets a record be found when names are misspelled.
Close-outalso: file closure: The final steps on a matter: final bill, return of documents and money, closing letter, archive and a note of retention date. A matter left half-closed is a trust accounting and conflict-check problem waiting to happen. Matter close-out in Notion
Retention periodalso: document retention policy: How long you must or choose to keep a file after it closes. It is set by your regulator, insurer and client agreements, not by convenience; record the destruction date on the matter when you close it.
Litigation holdalso: legal hold: An instruction to preserve potentially relevant documents and data once litigation is reasonably expected, suspending normal deletion. Failing to preserve evidence can be sanctioned; the specifics vary by jurisdiction.
Discoveryalso: disclosure: The stage in some systems where parties exchange relevant documents and information before trial. Called disclosure in England and Wales and some other systems; the scope and procedure differ.
Bates numbering: Stamping a unique sequential identifier on each page or file in a document set, so every page can be cited precisely. It is done in review and production platforms, not in a general workspace tool.
Privilege log: A list of documents withheld from production as privileged, describing each enough for the other side to assess the claim without revealing the content.
Pleading: A formal written statement of a party's case filed with the court, such as a claim or defence. The names and rules differ by court.
Tolling: Pausing or extending the running of a limitation period in circumstances the law allows, such as a standstill agreement or the claimant's disability. Whether it applies is a legal question, not one to assume. Limitation tracking in Notion
Service of processalso: service: Formally delivering court documents to the other party, often by a prescribed method. The date and method of service can fix deadlines, which is why they are recorded as trigger events.
Docket: The court's record of a case's filings and events, and, in firm usage, the firm's own calendar of its deadlines and hearings. Also used as a verb: to docket a date is to enter it in the system. Deadlines in Notion
Court rules calendaringalso: rules-based calendaring: Software that calculates deadlines from procedural rules, taking account of the trigger event, service method, holidays and local variations, and updating when rules change. Notion does not do this; it can track the result. Can Notion calculate court deadlines?
Due diligence: The investigation a buyer, investor or lender does before a deal, reviewing the target's documents, finances, contracts and risks. Lawyers run the legal part and track the findings against a checklist.
Data room: A secure online repository where documents are shared with the other side during due diligence, with permissions and a record of who viewed what. A shared Notion page is not a substitute for one on a significant deal.
Term sheet: A short, mostly non-binding summary of the main terms of a proposed deal, used to agree the shape before the full documents are drafted. Which parts are binding (confidentiality, exclusivity) should be stated.
Letter of intentalso: LOI, heads of terms: A document recording the parties' intention to do a deal, usually with some binding provisions and some not. Whether it binds depends on its wording and the governing law, so read it as a contract.
Redlinealso: comparison, blackline: A marked-up version of a document showing insertions and deletions against an earlier version. The comparison is mechanical; deciding which changes matter is the lawyer's job.
Execution versionalso: signing version: The final form of a document that will be signed. Agreeing on exactly which version is the execution version, and signing that one, avoids disputes over what was agreed.
Clause bank: A curated set of approved clauses and fallbacks for drafting. Its value depends on ownership and review dates: a clause bank nobody maintains is a source of old mistakes. A clause and precedent library in Notion
Playbookalso: negotiation playbook: A written guide to a contract type: the preferred position, acceptable fallbacks and what needs escalation, so reviews are consistent and faster. AI contract review is only as good as the playbook behind it.
Power of attorney: A document giving one person legal authority to act for another. The types, formalities and revocation rules vary widely by jurisdiction.
Probate: The process of proving a will and administering a deceased person's estate. Terminology and procedure differ by jurisdiction; in some places the term covers a wider or narrower process.
Paralegal: A trained person who does legal work under a lawyer's supervision. What a paralegal may do, and what must remain with a lawyer, is set by local rules. Notion for paralegals and legal ops
Of counsel: A lawyer attached to a firm in a role that is neither partner nor associate, often senior, part-time or advisory. The term has no uniform meaning.

Notion

The handful of Notion concepts that do the work. Understand relations and rollups and the rest of the product stops being mysterious.

Database: A collection of pages that share a set of properties — effectively a table where every row is also a full page you can write in. This dual nature is the thing that makes Notion suitable for legal work: a matter is a row with structured fields and a document you can draft in, at the same time. Databases, deeply
Propertyalso: field: A column on a database: text, date, select, person, number, relation, rollup, formula. The design of a practice system is almost entirely the question of which properties a matter has, and the most common mistake is having too many.
Relation: A property that links rows in one database to rows in another — this matter to this client, this case to this topic. Relations are the single reason a workspace beats a folder of documents: the same record can be reached from every direction without being copied anywhere. Relations and rollups
Rollup: A property that summarises related rows: total time on this matter, number of outstanding tasks, latest deadline, sum of disbursements. A relation connects records; a rollup makes the connection produce a number you can filter and sort on. Relations and rollups
View: A saved way of looking at a database — filtered, sorted, grouped, as a table or board or calendar. One database can have many. This is how a firm shares one set of matters while each person sees only their own next actions, and why keeping a private list alongside the shared one is always a mistake.
Formula: A calculated property. Useful for fee estimates, days-until-deadline and status logic. Capable enough for most practice arithmetic and the wrong tool for anything that gets scrutinised line by line — a schedule of loss belongs in a spreadsheet.
Database template: A pre-built page structure that instantiates when you create a new row: a matter opening with its sub-pages, its standard tasks and its checklist already in place. This is where a written procedure stops being a document somebody has to remember and becomes the work itself. SOPs built into the template
Teamspace: A permissioned area of a workspace, on Notion's paid plans. For a firm, the unit that separates what everyone can see from what only the partners can, and for an in-house team the thing that keeps legal's material out of a company-wide workspace. Design it before migrating; retrofitting access control is genuinely unpleasant. Security and confidentiality
Synced block: A block of content that appears in several places and updates everywhere when edited once. Useful for a standard disclaimer or a fee note that must not drift between pages.
Notion AI: AI that works across the content already in your workspace rather than in a separate chat window. For legal work that context is the whole difference: a model drafting from your own approved clauses is doing something a general chatbot cannot, and it raises confidentiality questions a general chatbot also raises. AI in Notion
Duplicate: Copying a shared template into your own workspace in one click, after which it is entirely yours to change. It is how every template on this site is delivered, and the reason a template you cannot edit is a product while one you can is a starting point. The free library
Notion templatealso: Notion legal template, Notion workspace template: A pre-built Notion page or workspace you duplicate into your own account. For legal work, the useful ones are systems of related databases — matters, clients, deadlines, time — rather than single pages; a template's value is the build time it saves and the architecture it gets right. The best Notion templates for lawyers
Page: The basic unit of Notion: a canvas of blocks that can hold text, tables, files and other pages. Every row in a database is also a page, which is what lets a matter record carry notes as well as properties.
Block: A single element on a page: a paragraph, heading, checklist item, image, table or embed. Blocks can be moved and nested, and some, like synced blocks, appear in several places at once.
Workspace: The top-level container for a team's pages and databases, with its own members, permissions and plan. Keeping a firm's workspace separate from personal ones is the simplest confidentiality control.
Select property: A property that holds one choice from a list, such as a matter status. Use it instead of free text wherever you want to filter or count, because spelling variants break filters.
Multi-select property: A property that holds several choices from a list, such as tags. Handy for categories, but if you find yourself needing to relate or roll up the values, a relation to another database is the better tool.
Filter: A rule that limits a view to rows matching conditions, such as matters that are Open and owned by me. Filters change what you see, not the data underneath. Databases, for lawyers
Sort: An ordering applied to a view, such as deadlines by date. Like filters, it changes the view, not the data.
Group: A view setting that gathers rows under a property's values, such as matters grouped by status. A board view is a grouped view shown as columns.
Linked database view: A view of an existing database placed on another page, usually filtered. It is how a client page shows only that client's matters, and how a dashboard shows data that lives elsewhere without copying it.
Board view: A view that shows rows as cards in columns by a select or status property, suited to pipelines such as enquiries moving to engaged.
Timeline view: A view that lays rows out as bars along a time axis using start and end dates, suited to phases and project plans.
Calendar view: A view that places rows on a calendar by a date property, suited to hearings and deadlines. It displays dates; it does not calculate them.
Gallery view: A view that shows rows as cards with covers or previews, suited to a template library or a set of precedents.
Table view: The spreadsheet-like default view of a database, with one row per record and one column per property.
Inline database: A database placed within a page, among other content, as opposed to taking up the whole page. It is the usual way to show a matter's related rows on its own page.
Button: A block that runs a set of actions when clicked, such as creating a pre-filled row or setting a property. It is a way to standardise steps like opening a matter without any code.
Automation: A rule that does something when a trigger occurs, such as notifying someone when a status changes. Availability and limits depend on your plan and change over time, so check Notion's current documentation.
Form: A way to collect submissions that become rows in a database, used for enquiry and intake. A public form is open to anyone with the link, so decide deliberately what it asks and who sees the responses. Client intake in Notion
Page permissions: The settings that control who can see or change a page: broadly full access, edit, comment and view. Setting them on the page level, not just the workspace, is how a sensitive matter stays restricted.
Guest: Someone outside your workspace's members who is given access to specific pages. Each guest is a person with access to client information, so list them and remove them when work ends. Privilege and Notion
Share to web: A setting that makes a page readable by anyone with its link, no login needed. It is the commonest way a workspace leaks; for client matters it should normally be disabled.
Page history: Notion's record of earlier versions of a page, how far back depending on your plan. Useful for recovering a mistake; not a substitute for a backup or an audit trail.
Exportalso: data export: Taking your content out of Notion in formats such as Markdown, CSV, HTML or PDF. Test it before you need it: knowing you can leave, and that the export is usable, is part of choosing any tool.
Connectionalso: integration: A link between Notion and another app that lets the app read or write your content. Each connection widens who and what can reach client data, so approve them deliberately and review them.
Notion API: The programming interface through which software can read and write Notion content, used by integrations and automation platforms. It needs a token with access to specific pages, which is itself a credential to protect.
Agentalso: Notion agent, AI agent: In Notion, an AI feature that can carry out multi-step tasks across your workspace, not just answer a question. Its reach is defined by what it can access, so scope that before you let it near client matters. A Notion AI setup for law firms
Wiki: A set of linked pages organised as shared knowledge, which in Notion can carry owners and verification so people know what to trust. The firm wiki is where procedures and precedents live. The firm wiki
Backlink: A record on a page of every other page that links to it. It shows where a precedent or a contact is used, without anyone maintaining the list.
Mention: A link to a page, person or date written inline in text, using @. People mentioned are notified, so avoid putting confidential detail in the notification text.
Toggle: A block that hides content until clicked. Good for tucking checklists and long procedures away; do not use it to hide anything that should be access-controlled, because hidden is not secure.
Callout: A highlighted block used for warnings and key points, such as a reminder on a template that a field is mandatory.

Legal technology

The category words, and what each of them is actually buying you.

Practice management softwarealso: PMS, case management software: The category covering matters, contacts, time, billing and often trust accounting in one product — Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, Smokeball. Underneath, most of it is a relational database with legal-specific views; what you are really paying for is the parts that are genuinely hard, which is trust reconciliation, court rules and payments. The honest alternatives
Case managementalso: legal case management, matter management: Keeping one record per case or matter with its people, stage, deadlines, tasks, documents, time and notes, all related so the case page is the complete file. Case management is the usual term in litigation and in the US; matter management is common in transactional work and the UK. It is a job, not a product — software is one way to do it, a well-built Notion workspace is another. Case management in Notion
Legal CRMalso: client relationship management, law firm CRM: The record of who a firm knows, every enquiry and its outcome, the history of interactions and where work comes from. For a small firm the useful part is not campaigns but follow-up and referral tracking — which is why it works best related to the matters themselves rather than in a separate product. A legal CRM in Notion
Document management systemalso: DMS: Software whose job is storing, versioning and controlling access to documents at scale — iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint. Larger firms mandate one, and where one is mandated the question of what else you use for matters becomes a much smaller question.
Contract lifecycle managementalso: CLM: Software covering a contract from request through drafting, negotiation, signature and renewal. For a small in-house team, the genuinely valuable parts are a request queue, an owner per agreement and a renewal date — all of which a workspace does. Clause-level analytics and automated redlining are what you are actually buying a product for. Notion for in-house counsel
Legal operationsalso: legal ops: The business of running a legal function: process, tooling, spend, vendors, reporting. Chronically undervalued for a structural reason — the work is invisible unless someone records it as data, and most of it never is. Notion for paralegals and legal ops
Knowledge managementalso: KM: Capturing how a firm actually does things so it survives the departure of whoever knows. In a firm of two to twenty this is not a documentation project; it is writing a short page the second time somebody asks the same question. A law firm wiki
Standard operating procedurealso: SOP: A written, repeatable sequence for a task done more than once by more than one person. The reason most SOPs fail is not writing quality — it is that they live somewhere separate from the work, so following one requires remembering it exists. SOPs for a small firm
Time capture: Recording billable work. Passive capture — software watching what you do and proposing entries — records work you would not otherwise have recorded, which shows up directly in revenue. It is the one feature whose loss is genuinely measurable when leaving a practice management product. The honest sticking point
Client portal: A place clients log in to see their matter, exchange documents and sometimes pay. Firms overestimate how much theirs is used; before treating it as a reason to stay on a product, count how many clients actually opened it last month. The client portal pattern
Lead magnet: Something genuinely useful given away in exchange for an email address. Every free template and guide on this site is one, which is stated plainly rather than implied: you get the thing, free, and we get to email you about once a week until you tell us to stop. The free library
Large language modelalso: LLM: A statistical model trained on text that generates fluent language in response to a prompt. It predicts plausible text; it does not look up facts, which is why it can state falsehoods confidently.
Hallucinationalso: AI hallucination: When an AI system produces confident output that is false, such as a case citation that does not exist. It is a known failure mode and has led to sanctions for lawyers who filed unchecked AI output. The ethics of using AI in legal practice
Prompt: The instruction and context given to an AI system. A good legal prompt states the task, the role, the facts, the jurisdiction and the format wanted, and contains no more client information than the task needs. The legal AI prompt library
Retrieval-augmented generationalso: RAG: A technique where a system first retrieves relevant documents from a defined source, then has the model answer using them. It improves grounding but does not guarantee accuracy: the answer is only as good as what was retrieved.
Zero data retention: An arrangement where an AI provider does not store prompts and outputs after processing them. Whether it applies depends on the plan and the provider's terms, so read the specific statement and not the marketing. Is Notion AI safe for confidential legal work?
Data residency: Where your data is physically stored. Some laws and clients care; vendors may offer a choice of region on certain plans only, so ask which plan and what exactly is kept there.
SOC 2: A report from an independent auditor on a vendor's controls, in a Type 1 or Type 2 form depending on whether it covers a point in time or a period. It speaks to the vendor's controls, not to how you configure your own use. What compliance labels mean for a law firm
ISO 27001also: ISO/IEC 27001: An international standard for managing information security. A vendor holding it has a certified management system; it does not certify any particular product feature or your use of it.
Business associate agreementalso: BAA: A contract required under US health privacy law (HIPAA) between a covered entity and a service provider that handles protected health information for it. A law firm can be on either side of one.
Protected health informationalso: PHI: Health-related information that identifies a person and is covered by US health privacy law (HIPAA) when held by covered entities and their business associates.
Data processing agreementalso: DPA: A contract under which a vendor handles personal data on your behalf, required under GDPR and similar laws. It sets what the vendor may do with the data and what safeguards it must keep.
GDPRalso: General Data Protection Regulation: The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, with a UK equivalent, governing personal data. A firm handling personal data of people in scope is usually a controller with its own duties; a vendor's compliance does not discharge them.
Encryption at rest: Scrambling stored data so it is unreadable without a key, protecting against theft of the storage itself. It does not protect against someone with a valid login.
Encryption in transit: Scrambling data while it moves between your device and a service, so it cannot be read on the way. It is standard and expected; its absence is disqualifying.
Multi-factor authenticationalso: MFA, two-factor authentication, 2FA: Requiring a second proof of identity beyond a password, such as a code or a security key. It is the single most effective control against stolen passwords, and should be on for every account that touches client data.
Single sign-onalso: SSO, SAML: Logging into many services through one central identity, so access can be granted and removed in one place. Usually an enterprise-tier feature.
SCIM: A standard for automatically creating and removing user accounts across services from a central directory, so a leaver loses access everywhere at once. Usually an enterprise-tier feature.
Audit logalso: activity log: A record of who did what and when in a system, such as who opened or shared a page. It is how you investigate an incident afterwards; check which plans include it and how long it is kept.
E-discoveryalso: electronic discovery, eDiscovery: Finding, preserving, reviewing and producing electronic documents for litigation or investigations. Done on purpose-built platforms; a general workspace tool is not a substitute.
Technology-assisted reviewalso: TAR, predictive coding: Using software, often machine learning, to prioritise or classify documents for relevance during review, so people read fewer of them. Its use is subject to validation and, in some courts, agreement between the parties.
Document automationalso: document assembly: Generating documents from a template and a set of answers or data, rather than editing a precedent by hand. It saves most where documents are repetitive and rules are stable.
E-signature: Signing a document electronically. Whether a given type of document may be signed this way, and which form of e-signature is accepted, depends on the law and the document.
Citator: A research tool that shows whether a case or statute has been followed, distinguished, criticised or overturned. Checking authorities this way is the safeguard against relying on law that is no longer good, including AI-suggested citations.
Optical character recognitionalso: OCR: Software that turns images of text, such as scanned pages, into searchable text. Quality varies with the scan, so spot-check anything you rely on.
Redaction: Permanently removing confidential content from a document before sharing it. A black box drawn over text is not redaction if the text is still in the file; use a tool that removes the underlying content, then check.
Single source of truth: One place where a fact, such as a deadline or a client's address, is recorded and from which every other view reads, so it cannot disagree with itself. It is the reason to relate databases rather than copy values between them.
No-code automationalso: workflow automation: Connecting apps and automating steps between them without writing software, using platforms that watch for triggers and act. Each automation is another system with access to your data, so treat it as a vendor.
Webhook: A message one system sends to another automatically when something happens, such as a new row being created. It is how many automations are triggered, and the URL it targets should be treated as a secret.
Vendor lock-in: Being unable to leave a product without unacceptable cost, because your data is stuck or your processes depend on it. Test your exit before you need it: export your data and check that someone else could use it.
Data portability: The ability to take your data out of a system in a usable form. It is the practical answer to lock-in and, in some jurisdictions, a legal right for personal data.

A term missing, or a definition you would argue with? Tell me — this list grows from what readers say is unclear.