Travers Smith LLP has announced the development of MatMail, an innovative new matter-centric email filing tool, which significantly reduces time spent on filing emails. Having successfully launched the software internally, Travers Smith has also open sourced MatMail for the legal market, allowing other law firms to replicate and introduce similar tools to their email filing systems.
Like most law firms, Travers Smith lawyers are deluged with emails daily. They spend a huge amount of time managing the constant email stream, with one of the biggest challenges being the ability to quickly and accurately assess and file emails as they arrive.
Leveraging the fact that emails often tend to be filed by the most organised individuals in the email chain, creating clusters of email organisation, the firm’s Legal Technology team, led by Head of Legal Technology Shawn Curran, has built MatMail to replicate good filing behaviour for all recipients of the email.
MatMail is designed to scan a lawyer’s mailbox and compare their emails to those already filed in the firm’s document management system. When a match is found, the tool takes the workspace details and automatically creates a client/matter folder in the lawyer’s mailbox. Once the folders have been created, the matched emails are automatically filed into the matter-centric mailbox folders. As a result, MatMail can remove the laborious task of email filing from lawyers’ daily to-do lists, freeing more time for client work or out of work activities.
Additionally, the introduction of MatMail addresses the issue of mailboxes invariably being too large. Like most firms, we impose mailbox size limits mainly to encourage good email filing behaviours. With MatMail, and the associated data, we have the ability to rank lawyers by how organised they are. As a result of this data, we are now looking to create a direct link between percentage of mailbox organised to mailbox size limits. The more organised our lawyers are, the more mailbox storage they get. The fact that we have automated the organisation makes this a win-win.
Earlier this month, Shawn Curran officially previewed the new software at ILTACON 2019 in Orlando, the global premier legal technology event. Initial reaction to MatMail, and the decision to open source the software, was extremely positive, with many peer firms and vendors describing Shawn’s presentation as the most impactful talk of the conference.
Travers Smith’s Head of Legal Technology Shawn Curran said: “The response to the tool across the firm has been fantastic, and by rewarding good filing practice with larger mailbox sizes it will mean that lawyers will actually use the tool to become more organised, rather than us having to push it on them. The MatMail tool may seem like a simple solution; however, it can have a big impact. Not only have we freed up lawyer time for client work, we have also given them time back for their personal lives, while also encouraging good email filing practices.”
Travers Smith’s Managing Partner David Patient commented: “The development of the MatMail tool is an exciting development in Travers Smith’s legal technology offering. With this tool we want to reduce one of the more laborious tasks that lawyers have to carry out, allowing them to work more efficiently and get some valuable time back to use as they see fit.”
MatMail was inspired by a desire to give busy people back their time, so will not be sold by Travers Smith, and the firm asks that third parties respect this decision and do not attempt to sell the software for a profit. Firms wishing to use the software to improve their own systems and work processes may do so free of charge and can register their interest by getting in touch with Shawn Curran at shawn.curran@traverssmith.com.