Legal Technology Studio

Legal tech,
solved.

We sit at the intersection of legal operations and software engineering and identify what to build, integrate, or optimize and deliver.

Work with us → See our services
$1.5M
Saved for a leading pharma co.
6
Service Specialities
2
Founders, zero bloat
Why MatterWorks

The gap most
legal teams
are stuck in.

Off-the-shelf software rarely fits the way your team actually works. Building something custom requires a technical product team most firms don't have. And translating a legal problem into a technology solution takes a kind of fluency that's hard to find.


That's the gap we close.

01
Large SaaS solutions don't fit.
Off-the-shelf platforms are built for everyone, which means they're optimized for no one. Legal teams overpay for software that covers 60% of their needs. You're paying to drive a Ferrari when you need a Camry.
02
Custom requires a team you don't have.
Building the right solution requires a competent technical product team. Most law firms and in-house legal departments don't have one and are already resource constrained. Finding people who know both legal and tech is like looking for unicorns.
03
Translating legal to tech is hard.
You know exactly what you need operationally. Turning that into a technology spec, into design, into functioning technology requires fluency in both legal operations and engineering.
Who we help

Who is this
right for?

We work with legal teams and law firms who are stuck in the gap between what they need and what exists.

In-house legal teams at large enterprises
You have complexity, volume, and cross-functional dependencies. Off-the-shelf CLM, matter management, and workflow tools cover the basics but miss what your team actually needs.
Enterprise Legal Ops
In-house legal teams at mid-market companies
You're growing fast, your legal ops are getting more complex, and you don't have the budget for enterprise vendors - but you need solutions that actually scale with you.
Mid-Market Legal
Law firms of all sizes
BigLaw modernizing internal operations, mid-market firms differentiating through technology, and boutiques building client-facing tools their competitors don't have yet.
Law Firms
What we do

From legal problem
to working solution.

Every engagement starts with understanding your unique operation and ends with deployed software that solves a real, defined, measurable problem for your organization.

01
Technology Assessment & Strategy
We map your legal operations, audit your current tools, and identify exactly where technology can do more. You get a clear picture of what to build, buy, or replace - and why.
→
02
Custom Software Development
When off-the-shelf doesn't fit, we build. From workflow tools to client-facing applications, we design and engineer software around how your team actually operates.
→
03
Systems Integration
Most legal teams already have the right tools - they just don't talk to each other. We connect your existing platforms into a cohesive, automated ecosystem.
→
04
Workflow Automation
We identify the manual, repetitive work inside your legal operations and eliminate it - building automations that save time without sacrificing control or compliance.
→
05
AI & Emerging Technology
We cut through the noise. Whether it's document intelligence, contract review, or legal research tooling, we help you identify where AI genuinely moves the needle - and implement it responsibly.
→
06
Microsoft 365 Engineering
Most legal teams live inside Microsoft 365. We make it work harder - building custom integrations, automations, and tooling across Teams, SharePoint, and Power Automate tailored to your legal workflows.
→
The team

Built by people who've
lived both sides.

MatterWorks was founded by practitioners - people who've worked inside legal teams and inside engineering teams. We know what gets lost in translation, because we've been on both ends of the conversation.

Simon
Co-Founder, Development

Simon Hoskins

Simon is a product-minded software engineer based in London, with 13 years of experience - 8 of them in legal tech. After 5 years as a team lead at iManage, he moved into building custom applications for legal firms, with a focus on AI engineering over the last 3 years. Multi-disciplined and equally comfortable across stack, language, or domain, Simon brings an engineer's precision and a product manager's instinct to every problem. Outside of coding, he's keeping up with the latest in tech or tinkering on side projects - schedule permitting, which is to say whenever his young daughter grants him clearance.

B.S. Computer Science, Brunel University London 13 years in software engineering 8 years in legal tech
Max
Co-Founder, Strategy

Max O'Rourke

Max started his career in investment banking in Chicago before deciding he'd rather build value than extract it. That pivot led to 8+ years in product management, consulting and legal tech - working across venture-backed startups, PE-owned mid-market companies, and Fortune 500s - and eventually running his own consultancy helping SMBs build their tech stacks, AI strategy, and GTM. He has an unusual ability to make complex things simple and a habit of seeing exactly where technology and business strategy intersect. Max co-founded MatterWorks to bring that same clarity and value to the Legal space. When he's not building, he's on the golf course in the summer and ski slopes in the winter - or being outnumbered by his wife and their two golden doodles at home in Indianapolis.

B.S. Finance & Computer Science, DePaul University Chicago 8+ years in product management & consulting Venture-backed, PE & Fortune 500 experience
Board of Advisors
Cara M. Houck
Advisor

Cara M. Houck

Partner, Litigation & Real Estate · Holland & Knight LLP

Partner, Holland & Knight LLP Fellow, American Bar Foundation MBA, Northwestern Kellogg J.D., Cooley Law School

Cara is a Partner at Holland & Knight LLP, one of the country's premier AmLaw 100 firms, where she practices at the intersection of complex commercial litigation and real estate. Over a 25+ year career, she has defended Fortune 500 companies in commercial, employment, and class action matters, and spent the last decade focused on high-stakes commercial transactions, real estate litigation, and workout negotiations. A Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Board Member of the Chicago Bar Foundation, Cara brings rare depth - both as a seasoned courtroom practitioner and as a transactional partner. Her MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management gives her an instinct for the business side of legal that most attorneys simply don't have. Cara advises MatterWorks on legal market strategy, client needs, and how technology actually lands inside law firms.

LinkedIn
Our work

Work that
made a difference.

1 / 2
Case study
Custom CLM - moving off a legacy vendor
A leading global pharmaceutical manufacturer was locked into an industry-standard CLM vendor that no longer fit their contract complexity or team workflows. The platform was expensive, rigid, and required significant manual workaround. We assessed their legal operations end-to-end, identified the gaps, and built a custom contract lifecycle management solution - integrated directly into their existing enterprise environment and tailored to their specific approval chains, jurisdiction requirements, and reporting needs.
The result: $1.5M in annual savings and a legal ops team that finally had a system built for them.
$1.5M
Annual savings delivered
Case study
SharePoint & M365 optimization for a mid-size UK law firm
A mid-size UK law firm was running their legal operations on a SharePoint environment that had grown organically over years - inconsistent document structures, poor metadata, and no real matter management to speak of. The team was spending significant time navigating the system rather than doing legal work. We audited their Microsoft 365 environment end-to-end, redesigned their SharePoint architecture, and built custom tooling on top of the ecosystem to bring document management, metadata, and matter management into a single coherent workflow.
The result: a 23% increase in operational efficiency - measured over three months post go-live - and a legal team that actually enjoys using their own systems.
23%
Efficiency increase post go-live
Work with us

Ready to bridge
the gap?

No pitch decks. No lengthy scoping calls. Tell us what you're working on and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help.