Professional Services
Firms where billable time is the revenue record, and access to a matter file is a confidentiality duty rather than a setting.
The context
The unit of work is the matter, not the customer. Time, documents, expenses and the fee agreement all hang off it, and the same record decides who inside the firm may open it. A system here is a revenue ledger and an access boundary at the same time.
What makes it hard
Time is captured away from the desk
Entries rebuilt at the end of the week are reconstructed from memory, and what is not remembered is not invoiced. The entry has to be created where the work happens, on a phone with no signal.
The conflict check is a gate
A matter cannot open until every party, adverse party and related entity has been searched against the full history of the firm. That search has to answer before intake, across records the person running it is not allowed to read.
Ethical walls are row-level
A partner can be blocked from a matter inside their own firm. That block has to hold in search, export, reporting and any AI retrieval index. A hit count on a file nobody may open is already a disclosure.
Each fee arrangement bills differently
Capped fees, blended rates, retainers, phased discounts and outside-counsel billing rules mean the invoice is computed, not typed. Under ZATCA clearance the write-down has to happen before the invoice is stamped, not as a credit note the client also sees.
How we help
- The first review maps the matter lifecycle: intake and conflict search, the fee agreement, billing, and the retention clock that starts when the matter closes.
- Access is enforced in the query layer, not a settings screen, and a refused read is logged.
- Billing rules sit in one engine with the rate card, so a new fee arrangement is configuration rather than a second invoicing path.
- Matter search and AI drafting read only what the user could already open, and cite the document behind the answer.
- Utilization and matter profitability read from the invoice entries, not a separate report.
- ZATCA Phase Two clearance before an invoice reaches the client
- PDPL duties over personal data held inside a client matter
- Conflict search across every historical party, not only current clients
- Ethical walls that hold in search, exports and reporting
- Hijri and Gregorian dates on one statutory deadline
- Retention and disposal schedules that outlive the engagement
Related services
Tell us what you are building.
Send the outline and we will come back with an honest read on scope, sequence and what it takes to run it in production.