LegalMate User Guide
Everything you need to research, manage matters, and analyse documents on LegalMate.
Getting started
Sign in
Log in with your firm account. Your matters, documents and research are private to your firm and synced to your firm’s server, so they are available on any device you sign in from.
Find your way around
Use the left sidebar: Dashboard for AI research, Matters for your cases, Documents for all uploaded files, and the Tools/Firm sections for legislation, case law, templates, team and settings.
Researching a legal question
Ask in plain English
On the Dashboard, type a question such as “What notice must a landlord give before entering a rental property in NZ?” and press Enter. LegalMate reasons through the question, searches New Zealand legislation and case law, and returns an answer with cited sources.
Review the sources
Each answer lists the legislation and case-law sources it relied on. Click any source to open the original on legislation.govt.nz or NZLII.
Save it to a matter
Click “Save to matter” to attach the research to an existing matter, or create a new matter on the spot. The research summary then appears on that matter’s Research tab and timeline.
Flag & tag research
Inside a matter’s Research tab you can star important research and add tags or issue labels (e.g. “rent review”, “limitation”), so related research is easy to group and find later.
Browsing case law
Open Case Law
Click “Case Law” in the left sidebar (under Tools). You’ll see a growing library of New Zealand decisions — landmark Supreme Court and Court of Appeal authorities plus real, recent judgments harvested from the official courts.
Filter by court and practice area
Use the Court filter (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, District Court, Family/Youth Court, Environment Court, the tribunals, etc.) and the Area filter (Criminal, Employment, Family, Property, Tax, Resource Management, Māori Law & Treaty, and more) to narrow the list.
Search by name or citation
Type a case name, citation, or keyword in the search box (e.g. “Hessell”, “[2024] NZSC 5”, “tenancy”) to jump straight to relevant decisions.
Read the judgment
Each card shows the citation, practice area, year and — for harvested cases — the outcome and judge. Click “View judgment” to open the full decision on the official source (NZLII or the courts’ website).
How the library grows
Recent judgments are harvested from official publishers (e.g. the District Court) and tagged automatically by our AI with practice area and outcome. Coverage expands over time, so check back as more decisions are added.
Creating & managing matters
Create a matter
Go to Matters → New matter. Give it a name (e.g. “Henderson v Coastal Properties Ltd”), a type, optional court/tribunal and hearing date. Note: creating matters requires a manager or admin role.
Open a matter
Click any matter card to see its tabs: Overview, Research, Documents, Tasks, Timeline, Draft and Client portal. The Overview shows the AI Matter Intelligence panel, Court Events, and a Parties/Upcoming summary in the sidebar. Edit notes and change status (Active / Pending / Closed) from the matter view.
Track tasks
The Tasks tab is your matter checklist — add filing deadlines, follow-ups and evidence requests, tick them off (it shows open/completed counts), and completed tasks flow into the timeline. Use “✨ Suggest tasks” to have the AI propose a recommended workflow for that matter type.
Court events
On the Overview, add court events (mediation, case conference, hearing, judgment) with date, location and judge, and record outcomes afterwards. They appear on the matter timeline automatically.
Everything is saved on the server
Matters, research links, tasks, events and documents are stored on your firm’s server — not just in your browser — so nothing is lost if you clear your cache or switch computers.
AI litigation tools in a matter
Matter Intelligence
On a matter’s Overview, click “Generate intelligence”. The AI reviews the matter’s documents and research and produces a Matter Health score, a summary, strengths, key issues, risks (including deadline warnings like “Hearing in 14 days”), and suggested next steps. You can add any suggested step straight to your Tasks.
AI Chronology
On the Timeline tab, click “Build from documents” to auto-extract a date/event chronology from the matter’s documents — the table of dates lawyers usually build by hand.
Evidence Analysis
On the Documents tab, click “Analyse evidence”. The AI assesses the overall strength of your evidence (Strong / Moderate / Weak) and lists what supports the case, what conflicts, and what evidence is missing (each addable as a task).
Drafting Assistant
The Draft ✨ tab generates a first draft of a court document — Statement of Claim, Affidavit, Witness Brief, Submissions, Letter, Memorandum — using the matter’s parties, documents, research and chronology. Pick the type, add optional instructions, generate, then copy the draft.
Always verify
Every AI feature is an assistant, not legal advice. Treat outputs as a starting point and cross-check facts, dates, citations and drafts against the primary sources before relying on them.
Uploading & analysing documents
Open a matter’s Documents tab
Inside any matter, open the Documents tab. Use “Upload & analyse a document” to choose a PDF, Word (.docx) or text file (up to 25 MB).
Ask a specific question (optional)
Before uploading you can type a question such as “Does this lease allow a rent review in year two?”. The AI reads the document’s actual content and answers using that document — not generic information.
Read the AI analysis
After upload, the document is stored and an AI analysis appears. Click any document to expand its full analysis: summary, key terms, rights/obligations/risks, relevant NZ law, and recommendations.
Automatic classification
Each upload is auto-tagged with a document type (Contract, Evidence, Witness Statement, Court Filing, Correspondence, Expert Report, Research Material) shown as a badge — so the matter understands what each file is.
Download or delete
Use Download to retrieve the original file at any time, or the ✕ to remove a document. All a matter’s files also appear in the firm-wide Documents page.
Quick analysis from the Dashboard
You can also upload a one-off document on the Dashboard (the paperclip/upload control) for a quick analysis without attaching it to a matter.
Sharing with clients
Open the Client portal tab
Each matter has a Client portal tab with a shareable link. The portal is a read-only, redacted view — clients see research summaries and document names, but never your internal notes.
Send the link
Copy the portal link and send it to your client. They see a matter-progress bar (% complete), research summaries and document names, and can request a consultation without needing an account. Internal notes and task details are never shown.
Troubleshooting & tips
Upload says “unsupported file type”
Only PDF, Word (.doc/.docx) and plain-text/markdown files are supported. Scanned image-only PDFs may contain no extractable text — use a text-based PDF where possible.
Analysis seems generic
Make sure you uploaded the document inside the matter’s Documents tab (or via the Dashboard upload). Ask a specific question to focus the analysis on what you need.
“Manager or admin access required”
Creating, editing or deleting matters needs a manager/admin role. Ask your firm administrator to update your role in Team settings.
Need more help?
See the FAQ and How it works pages, or contact your LegalMate administrator.
Ready to start?
Jump straight into research or open your matters.