Synergy Matters allows for entry of how many years a matter needs to be retained under our “Retention Years” entry for each matter.  When a matter is archived the destruction date will be automatically calculated based on the number of years after the matter was archived.  A lawyer will have the option to select “Show Eligible for Destruction” check box that will show all matters that are currently up for being able to be destroyed based on the retention years having been surpassed.  Only lawyers have the option to see the matters up for destruction and only lawyers can actually destroy the matter documents. Lawyers can only destroy matters that are assigned to them as responsible lawyer.

It is up to the lawyer to go into the matter and review any documents to determine if they should destroy the matter or not. The Synergy interface only lists which matters are likely able to be destroyed based on the archive date and retention years that was set for the matter.

When creating or editing a new client/matter, you can set the “Retention Years”.

When an active matter is archived by right clicking and choosing “Archive Matter”, the matter is moved to the archived view in Synergy and the Archived Date is set for that matter.

When on the “Archived” view of your list of clients you will see the Archived Date, Rention Years and the calculated Destruction Date.

You can manually change the Archived Date and Retention Years by right clicking the matter and choosing “Change Archived Date/Retention Years”.

You can set the Archived Date and Rentention Years Manually.

If you check off the “Show Eligible for Destruction” you will only see the archive matters that are eligible for destruction.

You can click “Destroy Selected” to only delete the documents for the selected matter and to remove the matter from the Synergy Matters interface.

To delete all elegible matters in the list click “Destroy All” and you will be prompted to confirm. If you choose yes, all documents for all the listed matters will be deleted and all the listed matters will be removed from Synergy.