Custom Software for Legal Technology (LegalTech)

One invariant: no individual client balance may be negative at any time. Massachusetts SJC Rule 1.15 also requires a check register, a subsidiary ledger per client matter, and a reconciliation at least every 60 days proving register, bank statement and matter totals identical. ERPStack enforces the invariant as a PostgreSQL CHECK constraint, because legal ledgers cannot rely on operator discipline.

Almost always the codes, not the transport. LEDES 1998B is an ASCII pipe-delimited file of 24 fields, and each line carries UTBMS task, activity and expense codes; the ABA Litigation Code Set of 1997 alone has 5 phases and 29 task codes. ERPStack validates codes, rate cards and block-billing rules in TypeScript with Zod before the legal invoice is transmitted.

At 40 lawyers, usually buy. Clio and PracticePanther cover intake, matters, time and trust for most legal work, and a custom ERP that only re-creates them is wasted spend. Custom software development earns its place when a firm has a workflow it will not bend — an alternative fee model, a client-specific outside counsel rules engine. ERPStack often builds beside Clio.

Elite 3E and Aderant are genuinely deep at partner compensation, multi-currency and matter costing, and a firm that already runs one rarely benefits from replacing it. The recurring legaltech complaint is that finance and practice management never reconcile. ERPStack usually builds the reconciliation layer and the client-facing portal in Next.js rather than a replacement ERP.

As row-level security plus an access log, not folder permissions. The conduct rules require timely screening of a personally disqualified lawyer from any participation, plus prompt written notice to the affected former client. ERPStack keys Postgres row-level security to matter and person, records every access attempt in an Immutable Audit Trail, and version-stamps the wall so a legal auditor can see when it existed.

That reasonable steps were taken to preserve. FRCP 37(e) lets a court order curative measures when electronically stored information that should have been preserved is lost, and on a finding of intent to deprive, instruct the jury to presume it was unfavourable, dismiss, or enter default judgment. ERPStack blocks the purge job at the PostgreSQL level while a legal hold is live.

By making the egress path the enforcement point. ERPStack routes every model call through an allow-list bound to the matter, strips privileged fields before the request leaves, and writes the prompt, model version and destination into an Immutable Audit Trail. That gives a legal team an answer to what left the building, and lets a client-specific restriction be enforced rather than promised.

Yes, if residency is a column and not a policy. ERPStack tags each legaltech matter with a region at row level, deploys the workload into that AWS or Microsoft Azure region, and keeps GDPR Data Compliance evidence queryable. Where transfers to the US are involved, the reference point is Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1795 of 10 July 2023, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Because a conflict lives in the party list, not the documents. iManage and NetDocuments index files; a legal conflicts check needs normalised parties, aliases, corporate parents and adverse relationships joined across every matter the firm ever opened. ERPStack builds that as a party graph in PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM, so the query is deterministic instead of a relevance score.

The form agreed at the Rule 26(f) conference, or failing that, FRCP 34(b)(2)(E): as ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form, and never the same ESI in two forms. FRCP 26(f) makes the parties confer at least 21 days before the Rule 16(b) conference. ERPStack emits Concordance DAT and Opticon OPT load files with Bates ranges, extracted text and hash values, so a legal team never produces the same document twice.