Why it pays
Run the math on a case you'd have declined.
Whichever way you bill, the workup is the cost — the largest, least-leveraged line in any matter. Move it off your desk and the arithmetic of intake changes.
The intake math
Why the workup decides which cases you take.
A case isn't declined because it lacks merit. It's declined because the hours to find out outweigh what the matter could return.
Matterfile removes the first cost. The motivated client does the workup, AI-assisted — and the matter that never penciled out now does.
It pays both ways
The case for either side of the ledger.
On contingency
It's your capital at risk. The workup is a bet placed before you know the odds.
- Less of your capital at risk — the client pre-builds the record, so you're not funding the workup out of pocket.
- More cases worth the bet — when the barrier was the workup and not the merit, the math finally clears.
- Earlier read on the odds — a sourced chronology tells you what you're holding before you commit the firm.
On the clock
The client pays for the hours — and resents paying for the ones spent sorting.
- Bill strategy, not sorting — higher realization, fewer write-downs on hours nobody wants to pay for.
- Faster to filing — the chronology and draft pleadings arrive built, not started.
- A lower-maintenance client — engaged, organized, and clear on what they have.
Where the hours go
The same month, spent differently.
Without Matterfile
- Associates sorting a shoebox
- Hours written down on intake
- Weeks before you know the case
- Capital committed on a hunch
With Matterfile
- The record arrives sourced and ordered
- Hours billed to lawyering, not filing
- The case legible in an afternoon
- The bet placed with the odds in view
Illustrative — your realization and intake mix are your own.
The barrier was never the merit of the case. It was the cost of finding out.
Get started
Run it on the file you almost declined.
Put a real matter on Matterfile and watch the work product assemble — the chronology, the exhibits, the draft pleadings your associates would otherwise build by hand. The first matter is free for fourteen days.