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5 Powerful Features of Lupl You Might Not Know About

India Preston

India Preston

Lupl app security
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    Let’s be honest, legal technology has been slow to move with the times. With only 37% of law firms currently using legal tech, many lawyers are forced to battle with systems that are clunky and impractical. So unsurprisingly, 60% of lawyers are dissatisfied with their tech stack.1 2

    But all that’s about to change. New platforms are bringing the legal world into the 21st century. Take Lupl, for example. We’re on a mission to simplify the way legal experts communicate and collaborate, both internally and externally. We’ve made it mobile, secure, and easy to use. In other words, we’re transforming the way legal works. 

    Just as you’re always looking for ways to help your clients, we’re always looking for ways to help you. We’re doing it through new features that simplify processes. In this article, we’ll explain how, by highlighting five powerful Lupl features you might not know about. Enjoy. 

    1. Matter templates

    As a legal professional, you juggle multiple matters every day. Creating checklists, managing folders, storing information and communicating with clients can take up a huge amount of time. We’ve got a fix for that.

    Matter templates give you access to a growing range of pre-made templates, created by our vibrant community of legal professionals, including respected organizations such as LexisNexis. If you don’t find the exact one you need, suggest a new one via our community or create your very own custom template.

    So why does this matter? Well, because your time is valuable. You want to spend it doing what you do best: solving your clients’ problems. Our matter templates enable you to do this faster, better, and more efficiently, allowing you to:

    • Consolidate your knowledge and research in one centralised, easy-to-access workspace.
    • Save hours searching for information in hard-to-find documents located in equally hard-to-find folders.
    • Get started on matters quickly — and on the go, as our matter templates are available on iOS.
    • Improve your research. Browser extensions let you bookmark or ‘pin’ your information to a matter, keeping everything important together — we call it Lupl Pins.
    • Bolster your knowledge management, sharing information and know-how internally, and externally, with everyone who has access to the matter.

    On our free plan, you get access to three matters so you can get working right away. But if you upgrade to one of our premium plans, you’ll have access to unlimited matters and customizable templates, giving you even more control over your matter management. Matters made easy.

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    2. Integrations 

    Law firms typically use a lot of different technology to help them deliver legal services — covering everything from e-billing and e-signatures to document management, knowledge management, and compliance tools. A lot of these tools can be frustrating to use, are outdated, or not specifically designed for the needs of the legal sector. 

    While Lupl’s collaboration tool allows you to eliminate some of these platforms, there are others you need to keep. This is where integrations come in. We’ve built integrations with some of the most important external apps and platforms, allowing you to connect data and workflows seamlessly across different technologies. Let’s look at some examples.

    WhatsApp

    WhatsApp is pretty much everyone’s go-to communication tool. It’s what your clients know and use. It’s what outside counsel uses. It’s what you use. So why move to another app? With Lupl, you can: 

    • Converse with clients securely
    • Send secure document links in WhatsApp to your clients and partners, directly from your document management system.
    • Receive client feedback on documents — and have that feedback automatically added to the matter.
    • Make changes to documents after you send them, ensuring that everyone is working off the current version.
    • Meet sector-specific security and compliance obligations.

    Clio and Tessaract

    Our out-of-the-box Clio and Tessaract integrations enable you to connect Lupl with your financial and billing data, allowing you to access your practice management systems more effectively. 

    But there’s more… 

    Lupl also integrates with your project management systems, task and document management systems — in fact, we can integrate with pretty much anything you can think of. Lupl is an open platform, which means any tech provider can integrate with it using open APIs. 

    Put simply, Lupl’s integrations connect your legal tech stack ‘plug-in-and-play’ style, bringing all the data, research, knowledge, and workflows you need together under one roof. No hassle, no fuss. This transforms the way you collaborate with clients and share documents, giving you the tools you need to get work done quickly and efficiently. 

    While our free plan offers some integrations to get you started, our premium plans give you access to more advanced integrations. This enables Lupl to become the central hub of your legal tech ecosystem, bringing everything together in one place. Simple.

    3. Security

    One look at recent law firm data breaches shows the legal sector isn’t as secure as it could be. That’s why Lupl is a Security by Design platform. In other words, we’ve designed Lupl to be as secure as possible, enabling you to reduce the risk of breaches through smart features and measures. Here are some key examples:

    • SOC2 accreditation: Lupl is fully SOC2 certified, meaning that its services meet certain standards for trustworthiness, security, and privacy.
    • Integrations: Lupl brings multiple platforms together in one centralised place, reducing the vulnerabilities of a disunited tech stack and the risk of human error when switching between multiple apps. It also reduces the use of email, one of the main culprits in recent data breaches.
    • Recipient notifications: Before you hit send on that document containing important information, a notification pops up in Lupl to remind you who you’re sharing it with — for that extra peace of mind.

    Together, these features improve ease of communication while reducing the risk of security breaches. And when you consider that 68% of legal sector data breaches are caused internally,3 you don’t need us to tell you how important this is.

    4. Project management

    There are so many moving parts in a legal project — just look at a closing checklist. At Lupl, we help bring these moving parts together in a cohesive, clear, and user-friendly way. Here are some of Lupl’s project management features that make this possible. 

    • Link documents and tasks: Link one or more documents on your document management system, or Lupl Drive, directly to a task, allowing you to easily create closing or trial checklists
    • Add multiple tasks to a document: Assign reviews and to-dos on a document to specific people — and then have them automatically chased for input before the deadline
    • Advanced sub-foldering: Store and organise documents in the Lupl Drive using multiple sub-folders, making it easy to share collections and find what you’re looking for.

    Lupl also offers integrated document and task management, giving you a 360-degree view of who’s working on what — and to which deadline.

    No need to chase people by email or phone to find out if they’ve completed a certain task. It’s all there on your mobile or computer. Having everything centralized in one easy-to-read dashboard makes collaboration simple and easy.

    Our free plan allows you to manage three live matters at a time. But to keep on top of all your projects, our premium plans give you unlimited matters and unparalleled project management.

    5. Unified communication and collaboration

    Compared to other communication tools, email is incredibly slow and tiresome. Yet that’s what many law firms still use. Alongside our WhatsApp integration, one of Lupl’s most powerful features is its ability to integrate with a whole host of communication platforms, reducing your law firm’s reliance on email.

    Instead of jumping between multiple modes of digital communication, Lupl brings them all together in one place. For example, with email integrated into the app, you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between your email and Lupl. It’s all unified. 

    What’s more, by creating easy-to-use matters, you can store not only your research and documentation but also all related communications within each matter. No more trying to remember whether, why, when, or to whom you sent a message. It’s all there in Lupl.

    The impact on your firm could be transformational, including:

    A platform more powerful than the sum of its parts

    So there you have it — a dedicated matter management platform designed by lawyers, for lawyers. And while many of the great features we’ve covered are available on our freemium model, upgrading to premium gives you full customization, as many templates as you’ll ever need, and much much more. 

    Together, these features combine to deliver legal technology that is more powerful than the sum of its parts — with the power to transform the way you communicate, collaborate, and deliver legal services. 

    Legal tech doesn’t have to be hard to use and disjointed. With Lupl, you can enjoy a seamless digital experience that makes your life easier, giving you more time to deliver the outstanding legal support that your clients expect. 

    To find out more about how Lupl can help you, request a free demo today.

    MoveLegalForward

    1  Technology and Innovation in Legal Services

    2  2022 Attorney Technology Satisfaction Survey

    3  68% of Legal Sector Data Breaches Caused by Insider Threats

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      # Lupl Workstream Design Principles: A Practical Guide to Legal Project Management for Lawyers Legal project management works when your setup is simple, ownership is clear, and statuses are unambiguous. This guide shows how to turn existing processes and checklists into a lean, reliable Workstream. Lupl is the legal project management platform for law firms, making it easy and intuitive to apply these principles. It also supports moving your work from Excel, Word tables, or if you are transitioning from Microsoft Planner, Smartsheet, or Monday. You will learn what belongs in a Workstream, a Task, or a Step, and which columns to use. If you want practical project management for lawyers, start here. **Excerpt:** Legal project management works when ownership, dates, and statuses are clear. This guide shows lawyers how to turn checklists into Lupl Workstreams with the right columns, Tasks, and Steps. Use it to standardize project management for lawyers, reduce follow ups, and move matters to done. --- ## How to organize your work with Workstreams, Tasks, and Steps Workstreams, Tasks, and Steps are three different types of objects in Lupl. They form a simple hierarchy. Workstreams contain Tasks. Tasks may contain optional Steps. This hierarchy aligns with standard project management. In project management, you break work into projects, deliverables, and subtasks. Lupl adapts this for lawyers by using Workstreams, Tasks, and Steps. This makes it easier to map legal processes to a structure that teams can track and manage. * **Workstream.** Use when you have many similar or related items to track over time. Think of the Workstream as the table. * Examples: closing checklist, court deadlines, pretrial preparation, regulatory obligations, due diligence, local counsel management. * **Task.** A high level unit of legal work. A key deliverable with an owner and a due date. Tasks are the rows. * Examples: File motion. Prepare Shareholder Agreement. Submit Q3 report. * **Step.** An optional short checklist inside a single Task. Steps roll up to the parent Task. * Examples: Draft. QC. Partner review. E file. Serve. ### Quick test * If it can be overdue by itself, make it a Task. * If it only helps complete a Task, make it a Step. * If you need different columns or owners, create a separate Workstream. --- ## Do you need to track everything in Lupl Not every detail needs to be tracked in a project management system. The principle is to capture what drives accountability and progress. In Lupl, that means focusing on deliverables, not every micro action. * Use the level of detail you would bring to a weekly team meeting agenda. * Position Tasks as key deliverables. Treat Steps as optional micro tasks to show progress. * Example: You need client instructions. Do not add a Task for "Email client to request a call." Just make the call. If the client approves a key deliverable on the call, mark that item Approved in Lupl so the team has visibility. --- ## Start with the Core 5 columns Columns are the backbone of a Workstream. They define what information is tracked for each Task. In project management terms, these are your core metadata fields. They keep everyone aligned without overcomplicating the table. Keep the table narrow. You can add later. These five work across most legal project management use cases. 1. **Title.** Start with a verb. Example: File answer to complaint. 2. **Status.** Five to seven clear choices. Example: Not started, In progress, For review, For approval, Done. 3. **Assignee.** One named owner per row. If you add multiple assignees for collaboration, still name a primary owner. 4. **Due date.** One date per row. 5. **Type or Category.** Show different kinds of work in one table. Example: Filing, Discovery, Signature, Approval. **Priority.** Add only if you actively triage by priority each week. If added, keep it simple: High, Medium, Low. --- ## Add up to three Helper columns Lupl includes a set of pre made columns you can use out of the box. These allow you to customize Workstreams around different phases or stages of a matter. They also let you map how you already track transactional work, litigation, or other processes. Helper columns are optional fields that add context. In task management, these are similar to tags or attributes you use to sort and filter work. The key is to only add what you will update and use. Pick only what you will use. Stop when you reach three. * Party or Counterparty * Jurisdiction or Court * Phase * Approver * Approval, status or yes or no * Signature status * Risk, RAG * Amount or Number * External ID or Client ID * Document or Link * Docket number * Client entity **Guidance** * For Task Workstreams, prefer Approver, Approval, Risk. The rest are more common in Custom Workstreams. * Aim for eight columns or fewer in your main table. Put detail in the Task description, attachments, or Steps. --- ## Simple rules that keep your table clean Consistency is critical in project management. A cluttered or inconsistent table slows teams down. These rules ensure your Workstream remains usable and clear. * Only add a column people will update during the matter. If it never changes, set a default at the Workstream level or set a default value in the column. * Only add a column you will sort or filter on. If you will not use it to find or group work, leave it out. * If a value changes inside one Task, use Steps. Steps show progress without widening the table. * Keep columns short and structured. Use Description for brief context or instructions. Use Task comments for discussion and decisions. Link to work product in your DMS as the source of truth. * One accountable owner per Task and one due date. You can add collaborators, but always name a primary owner who moves the Task. If different people or dates apply to different parts, split into separate Tasks or capture the handoff as Steps. * Add automations after you lock the design. Finalize columns and status definitions first. Then add simple reminders and escalations that read those fields. --- ## Status hygiene that everyone understands Status is the single most important column in project management. It tells the team where the work stands. Too many options cause confusion. Too few cause misalignment. In Lupl, keep it simple and consistent. * Five to seven statuses are enough. * Use one review gate, For review or For approval. Use both only if your process needs two gates. * One terminal status, Done. This is the end state of the Task. Use Archived only if you report on it or need it for retention workflows. --- ## When to split into multiple Workstreams In project management, it is best practice to separate workstreams when workflows, owners, or audiences diverge. Lupl makes this easy by letting you create multiple Workstreams for one matter. Create a new Workstream if any of the following are true. * You need a different set of columns for a chunk of work. * Ownership or cadence is different, for example daily docketing vs monthly reporting. * The audience or confidentiality needs are different. **Signal** * If half your rows leave several columns blank, you are mixing processes. Split the table. --- ## Decision tree, three quick questions Use this quick framework to decide where an item belongs. This is the same principle used in task management software, adapted for legal workflows. 1. Is this a list of similar items over time, or a discrete phase of the matter * Yes. Create a Workstream. 2. Can it be overdue by itself, and does it need an owner * Yes. Create a Task. 3. Is it a step to finish a Task and not tracked on its own * Yes. Create a Step. --- ## Common mistakes to avoid Many project management failures come from overdesigning or misusing the structure. Avoid these mistakes to keep your Workstreams lean and effective. * Wide tables with many optional columns. Keep it to eight or fewer. * Two columns for the same idea, for example Status and Phase that overlap. Merge or define clearly. * More than one approval gate when one would do. It slows work and confuses owners. * Mixing unrelated processes in one table, for example signatures and invoice approvals. --- ## Build your first Workstream Building a Workstream is like setting up a project board. Keep it light, pilot it, then refine. Lupl is designed to let you do this quickly without heavy admin work. 1. Write the Workstream purpose in one sentence. 2. Add the Core 5 columns. 3. Add at most three Helpers you will use. 4. Define clear Status meanings in plain words. 5. Set defaults for any value that repeats on most rows, for example Jurisdiction. 6. Add two light automations, a due soon reminder and an overdue nudge. 7. Pilot for one week and adjust. --- ## Where this fits in legal project management Use these principles to standardize project management for lawyers across matters. Keep structures consistent. Reuse column sets and status definitions. Your team will find work faster, reduce follow ups, and close loops on time. --- ### On page SEO helpers * Suggested title tag. Lupl Workstream Design Principles, Practical Legal Project Management for Lawyers * Suggested meta description. Learn how to design lean Lupl Workstreams for legal project management. Get clear rules for Tasks, Steps, statuses, and columns to run matters with confidence. * Suggested URL slug. legal-project-management-for-lawyers-workstream-design

      Lupl Workstream Design Principles: A Practical Guide to Legal Project Management for Lawyers

      Learn why large‑firm lawyers are ditching Excel checklists for dynamic,...