The client portal

The client portal is a place of the client's own, separate from the console: its people sign in with their own password and an emailed code, and see only what the firm deliberately shares with them. Nothing appears in it because it belongs to the matter. Each matter's Client portal tab is where the firm runs it.

Give the client's people access

On the matter, open Client portal, then Access, and choose Give access. Pick the person from the client's own contacts where they are on it, or give their name and email. Choose what they may do:

• Owner: everything, and they may give their own colleagues access within what they hold.
• Director: everything.
• Finance: bills, payments and messages.
• Legal: the matter, documents, dates, signing and messages, but not the bills.
• Chosen one by one: pick each part yourself.

Then choose this matter alone or every matter of the client. Giving every matter needs portal management at the firm's scope. The person is emailed an invitation to set a password; it stays open for the firm's set number of days and can be sent again.

Each row says who gave the access: someone at the firm, or the client's own owner. End their access asks why and signs them out at once where it was their last access.

Share what the client should see

Documents, dates and bills reach the portal only when shared. On a document, a diary entry or a bill, choose Share to the client portal. For a document, say whether they may keep a copy and whether they must confirm they have read it. A bill goes only to the client it is addressed to. The client is emailed that something is waiting, never what it says.

Shared on the matter's portal tab lists every shared record with what the client did with it: opened, downloaded, acknowledged, or answered a date. Stop sharing takes it out of the portal at once; the share is kept as the record of what was shown.

Tell the client how the matter stands

Updates holds the case updates the firm publishes, in words for the client. The matter's internal stage is never shown. The responsible lawyer is reminded when a client has had no update for the firm's set number of days. An update published in error is withdrawn, saying why.

Messages, files and meetings

Messages holds the conversations with the client, each filed on the matter's correspondence too. A client's question about a bill is kept with that bill. Files the client sends wait in quarantine, are scanned, and join the matter's documents only when someone accepts them; one sent back says why. Every conversation carries the firm's standing notice that messages are not formal instructions.

Meetings holds the meetings the client asked for against the lawyer's open diary. Confirm one of the times offered (it goes in the diary and back to the client) or decline it saying why.

What the client can do with money

The client sees the bills shared with them, what is left to pay, payments and receipts, credit notes, payment plans, their statement of account, the money held for them in the client account, and the firm's requests for funds. Paying asks for a fresh emailed code and opens the same payment page as the bill's printed link.

Read it as the client does

On the portal tab's Overview, choose one of the client's people and Read as them: the matter exactly as they see it. Nothing is marked read or recorded as theirs. Activity lists what the client's people did in the portal and when, as the firm's proof against "I never received it".