Tracking pleadings and discovery on a litigation matter
How the Legal pack follows a litigation matter through pleadings, discovery, pre-trial and trial to the final account, with tasks and court dates.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Legal businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
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Litigation files are long and uneven. Weeks pass with nothing to do, then a notice arrives and several things fall due at once. In a small practice the danger is rarely that people do not know the steps. It is that a step on a quiet matter gets lost behind the noise of a busy one, or that the client's documents arrive so late that discovery becomes a scramble.
Achekam's Legal pack gives litigation its own workflow. Each phase of the matter brings its own tasks, discovery includes a request to the client for documents, and court dates sit on the matter record where anyone working on the file can see them.
The phases of the litigation workflow
The workflow takes a litigation matter through:
- Pleadings: the exchange of the documents that set out each side's case.
- Discovery: identifying and exchanging the documents relevant to the dispute, including the client's own.
- Pre-trial: the steps that make the matter ready for hearing.
- Trial: the hearing itself.
- Final account: closing the matter financially with the client.
The names of individual steps and their time limits come from the court rules that govern your matter, and those differ between South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya and between courts within each. The workflow supplies the phases. Your knowledge of the rules supplies what each phase demands, and the dates by which it must happen. In South Africa, that work is also done under the Legal Practice Council's Code of Conduct, which binds all attorneys, advocates, candidate legal practitioners and law firms.
Tasks that appear phase by phase
A workflow creates its tasks stage by stage. When the matter enters pleadings, the pleadings tasks appear; discovery tasks appear when discovery begins. That keeps a matter's task list about the present, instead of cluttering it with trial preparation on a matter that may settle long before trial.
Tasks can have subtasks up to three levels deep, and on a litigation file that depth earns its keep. A task such as "prepare the discovery affidavit" can hold subtasks for collecting the client's documents, reviewing them for privilege and preparing the schedule, and the collecting subtask can be broken down again when several people are involved. Give each subtask to the person who will actually do it, with its own date. A matter where every task belongs to the partner is a matter where nothing is really assigned.
Asking the client for discovery documents
Discovery is where litigation most often stalls on the client. The practice needs bank statements, correspondence, contracts and invoices that only the client holds, and an e-mail asking for "everything relevant" brings back either nothing or a box of unsorted paper.
In this workflow, discovery includes a request to the client for documents. A workflow step sends the request, the client answers it, and the answer moves the task on, so the file shows whether the client has responded without anyone checking an inbox.
Make the request specific:
- list the categories of documents you need, in words the client uses;
- say what period they should cover;
- say what form you want them in, for example complete statements rather than screenshots;
- explain briefly why it matters, because clients who understand discovery are more careful about what they hold back.
The more precise the request, the less time someone spends sorting what comes back, and the less chance of a late discovery that embarrasses the client at trial.
Court dates kept on the matter
A matter in the Legal pack carries its parties and its court dates. Keeping every date on the matter rather than in one person's diary means anyone opening the file sees what is coming, including the colleague who covers when the responsible attorney or advocate is away. It also gives the practice a single place to check during a weekly review of its litigation.
The habits are simple. Enter a date the day it is allocated, record what it is for, and have a second person check any date that was calculated from the rules rather than given by the court.
Closing with the final account
The workflow ends with the final account. That is the point to make sure everything recoverable has been billed, disbursements are accounted for, and the client's position with the practice is clear.
Across its whole life a matter moves through Intake, Conflict check, Mandate signed, Active, Finalising, and then Closed or Declined. The litigation phases happen while the matter is Active; the final account is what carries it into Finalising and, once settled, to Closed. Do not close a matter while a final account is still outstanding, or the money side of the file will be forgotten along with the rest.
A weekly litigation review
- Open each active litigation matter and confirm the phase it is in.
- Read the court dates for the coming weeks and confirm who is responsible for each.
- Look for overdue tasks and subtasks, and reassign where someone is away.
- Check outstanding client document requests and phone the clients who have gone quiet.
- For matters that have ended, confirm the final account has gone out.
Every litigation matter starts the same way as any other, with intake, a conflict check and a signed mandate, as set out in opening a new matter: FICA, conflicts and mandate. Where a matter first arrives as an enquiry, turning an enquiry into a consultation and a matter explains the step before that.
Set up your next new litigation matter in the pack from its first day, and use its phases as the agenda for the weekly review.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
