Organising a Case File from Day One: The Right Workflow

The worst time to think about how you will organise a case is when you are already three weeks into it. Files are in different places, notes are in a notebook that may or may not be at the office, and you cannot remember which version of a document you sent to the client last Tuesday.

The best time to think about it is before anything happens. Here is the workflow we recommend for anyone starting a new case — whether you are an investigator, a landlord, a solicitor, or an archivist.

Step 1 — Create the Case Before Anything Else

As soon as a new matter opens — before you take a call, before you open a document, before you write a note — create the case. Give it a clear reference name and assign it to the correct client contact. Everything that follows attaches to that case from the start.

Step 2 — Add the Contact Record

A case without a linked contact is an orphan. Log the client or subject details — name, email, phone, and any reference numbers — so that every document and message in the case is traceable to a person.

Step 3 — Upload Your First Document Immediately

The first instruction letter, the tenancy agreement, the brief from counsel — whatever the founding document of the case is, upload it on day one. This anchors the case in time and gives you a clear starting point if you ever need to reconstruct the timeline.

Step 4 — Set Access Before Inviting Anyone

If a colleague or junior will be working on the case, add them with the correct permissions before they start. It is far harder to audit and restrict access after the fact than to set it correctly from the beginning.

Step 5 — Use the Case as Your Single Source of Truth

This is the most important habit. Every email, every photograph, every report, every note goes into the case — not into a desktop folder, not into a personal drive, not into a messaging thread you will forward later. The case is the file. Treat it as such from day one.

A case file that requires explanation is a case file that will fail under pressure. Build it so that anyone could pick it up cold and understand exactly what happened and when.

The Ten-Minute Rule

At the end of every working day on a case, spend ten minutes making sure everything generated that day is in the case file. This single habit prevents the accumulation of undocumented work that derails cases when they reach the point of dispute, handover, or review.