Lawyered Matter Tracker

A practice management system for solo and small law firms, powered by Claude.

• You have client folders and an Excel spreadsheet — that's your whole CRM
• Instead of clicking through software, you talk to Claude to manage your files
• "New matter Smith" — searches your Gmail and client folders, builds a timeline, runs a conflict check, and adds the matter to your tracker
• "Daily triage" — scans your inbox, matches emails to open matters, flags court deadlines, and tells you what needs attention
• "Let's work on Smith" — loads the full context for a matter so you can pick up mid-conversation where the last session left off
• "Update matter Smith" — pulls new emails and documents since the last update, merges them into the timeline
• Everything stays local — no cloud database, no SaaS subscription, no vendor lock-in
• Includes an optional web dashboard for visual tracking

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop or Claude Code
• Gmail MCP server connected — the skills pull emails to build timelines and run triage. Without it, the skills still work but fall back to folder-only scanning.
• Google Calendar MCP server connected (optional, for calendar-sync) — pushes limitation dates, court deadlines, and follow-ups to a dedicated "Key Dates" Google Calendar. Skill falls back gracefully if not connected.

Setup

1. Install the skills

Install the five skills from this repo through Claude's UI, or import them from the skills/ directory. Each skill is a folder containing SKILL.md (two also ship a companion reference file the skill reads on demand — keep the folder together when installing).

Deterministic writes: the skills never edit the spreadsheet with ad-hoc code — every write goes through scripts/tracker_write.py, which does an Excel-lock check, a timestamped backup, format validation (dates, single-line next actions, court-deadline JSON), duplicate file-number prevention, an atomic save, and a post-write integrity check on every call. Copy scripts/ alongside your client directory (or adjust the path in the skills) so the guard is available.

Want Clio integration? There's a Clio-integrated variant of this repo that adds one-way sync from the tracker to Clio Manage via the clio-mcp server. Use that one instead if you want matters to appear in Clio automatically.

2. Set up your client directory

Your client directory should look like this — each client gets a subfolder:

My Client Files/
├── CLAUDE.md              ← copy from this repo, edit for your jurisdiction
├── matter-tracker.xlsx    ← the tracker (created automatically on first use)
├── Smith, John/           ← client folder
├── Rivera Holdings/       ← client folder
└── ...

Copy CLAUDE.md from this repo into your client files directory and edit it to fill in your firm name, initials, court email domains, and limitation statutes for your jurisdiction.

3. Start working

Open Claude Desktop (or run claude from the CLI) with your client files directory as the working directory. Then just say things like:

• "Run the daily triage"
• "Open a new matter for Smith v Jones"
• "Let's work on the Garcia file"
• "Update the timeline for matter 2026-003"
• "Run a conflict check for Acme Corp"

The tracker spreadsheet is created automatically the first time you open a new matter.

How It Works

Five Claude skills handle the core workflows:

Skill	What It Does
daily-triage	Scans Gmail for new emails, matches them to open matters, surfaces urgent items, auto-fills missing tracker fields, and presents a prioritised triage summary
matter-tracker	Opens, updates, and closes matters by pulling from Gmail + client folder files to build timelines. Runs conflict checks, tracks limitation periods, manages calendar sync, and maintains the Excel tracker
work-on-matter	Loads context for an existing matter at the start of a work session — reads the tracker row plus a current-state brief file (_matter-brief.md) from the matter folder, then orients you. As you do substantive work, saves an updated brief and writes inline tracker updates (Last Activity, Timeline, Next Action) so the next session picks up where you left off. Includes source-first drafting, pre-send sourcing checks, an instruction ledger for substantive drafts, and a privilege screen on outbound communications
calendar-sync (helper)	Pushes limitation dates, court deadlines, and follow-ups to a dedicated "Key Dates" Google Calendar. Invoked internally by matter-tracker and work-on-matter — not user-facing. Requires a Google Calendar MCP server
overdue-triage	The periodic deep sweep. Reviews every open matter for past-date items across Next Action (col I), Limitation Deadline (col R), and Court Deadlines (col S); investigates each, confirms with you one item at a time, and applies approved changes in a single batched write. Meant to run every few weeks

Daily Triage

Searches Gmail for recent emails, matches them against open matters by name/email/keyword, classifies urgency (court emails are always urgent), and presents a scannable summary. Auto-fills missing contact info when confident. Categorises unmatched emails into: active matters not yet tracked, new client inquiries, leads, and non-legal.

Matter Tracker

The CRM engine. "New matter Smith" triggers a full Gmail search + folder scan, builds a chronological timeline, runs a conflict check, and adds the matter to the spreadsheet. "Update matter Smith" pulls new activity since the last update and merges it in. "Close matter Smith" finalises and moves the row to the Closed Matters sheet. Always confirms before writing.

Work on Matter

"Let's work on Smith" reads the tracker row and the matter brief (_matter-brief.md) from the matter folder, then summarises where things stand so you can pick up immediately. As you do substantive work (review documents, draft letters, give advice), the skill saves an updated brief and writes inline tracker updates (Last Activity, Timeline append, Next Action) in the same response — there's no separate "save" step, because sessions can end without warning. Includes source-first drafting guardrails (every dollar figure, section reference, and party name gets confirmed against the source document before it lands in client-facing output), a pre-send sourcing check that surfaces unverified claims before any outbound communication leaves the firm, an instruction ledger that ties every provision in a substantive draft to either a client instruction or a flagged discretionary addition, and a privilege screen that catches internal reasoning bleeding into outbound comms.

Calendar Sync (helper, not user-facing)

Projects the tracker onto a dedicated Google Calendar. Court deadlines, limitation dates, follow-ups, and third-party pings each get a colour-coded event with a 14/7/2/0-day reminder schedule. The tracker is the source of truth; the calendar is a read-only projection.

Overdue Triage

The monthly (or quarterly) sweep. Walks every open matter, finds past-date items in the deadline columns, searches Gmail and the matter folder to figure out which ones were actually dealt with, and confirms each one with you before a single batched write. Items that look genuinely unresolved get surfaced as a red-flag list with suggested next actions.

Spreadsheet Schema

The tracker uses two sheets ("Open Matters" and "Closed Matters") with these columns:

Col	Header	Purpose
A	File #	Auto-assigned YYYY-NNN
B	Client Name	Format: Entity (Principal)
C	Matter Description	Brief description
D	Status	Open / Closed
E	Date Opened	YYYY-MM-DD
F	Date Closed	Blank until closed
G	Last Activity	Updated on every interaction
H	Opposing Party	If applicable
I	Next Action / Deadline	Key upcoming step
J	Timeline	Chronological log, one line per event
K	Client ID Verified	Checkmark or Pending
L	Conflict Check Done	Checkmark or Pending
M-O	Client Email/Phone/Address	Contact info
P	Discovery Date	For limitation tracking
Q	Limitation Statute	Dropdown of configured statutes
R	Limitation Deadline	Auto-calculated or manual
S	Court Deadlines	JSON array of bespoke deadlines
T	Matter Folder	Subfolder name for client files
U	Other Parties	For conflict check coverage
V	Matter Type	Free-text classification (Litigation / Solicitor / Transactional / etc.)

Optional: Web Dashboard

The webapp/ directory contains a Flask web dashboard that reads and writes the same matter-tracker.xlsx file. Copy it into your client directory and run:

pip install flask openpyxl
python app.py

Open http://localhost:5001. This is a supplementary visual tool — the primary workflow is conversational through Claude.

Author

@bitgrateful

License

MIT