Practice areas, matter types and custom fields

Practice areas

The firm starts with fifteen practice areas, from litigation and criminal law to conveyancing and corporate work. Rename, reorder, add or deactivate them under Settings, Practice, Practice areas.

Each area's record lists its People, added with Add person, and its heads of practice, chosen with Make head of practice. A permission granted at practice area scope reaches the areas a person belongs to, so membership decides, for example, whose time a head of practice may see.

Matter types

Under each area sit the kinds of matter the firm opens, such as a land suit or a share transfer; Add matter type on the area's record adds one. A matter type sets what every matter of that kind starts with:

• How it is Billed by default as.
• Its Stage set.
• The Client due diligence risk its KYC starts at.
• Whether it Needs a conflict check before it opens.
• Whether it Opens a case record for court work.
• How long its closed file is Kept for, or that it is kept indefinitely, as wills, deeds and titles are.

Everything a matter type carries

A matter type's page holds its whole bundle, one tab each, so the firm sees in one place everything a new matter of that kind starts with:

• Details: its name, code and defaults, edited with Edit details.
• Stages: the stage set and its stages. Attach a set, Change set and Take off change the set here; the stages themselves are kept on the set's page.
• Folders: the folders a matter of this kind opens with, or the firm-wide folders where it keeps none of its own. Edit the folders opens its structure.
• Workflows: the workflows written for this kind. The one marked Laid out on opening is laid out on every matter of this kind as it opens.
• Deadline rules: the rules written for this kind and those for every kind. Recording what sets time running on a matter suggests their deadlines.
• Templates: the document templates offered for this kind, and the Approval routes its documents follow.
• Checklist: the documents a matter of this kind must hold. Attach a checklist, Change checklist and Take off change it here; its items are kept on the checklist's page.
• Custom fields: the fields a matter of this kind carries beside the general ones.
• Billing: how it is billed by default, which the new matter form offers, and the layout its bills print in.
• Retention: the retention class its closed files fall in, and what decides it.

Each item opens its own page to be changed. Opening a matter of the type applies the whole bundle: its folders are made, its default workflow is laid out, it enters the first stage of the set, its deadline rules and checklist apply, and the new matter form offers its billing default.

Copy a matter type

To start a new kind of matter from one the firm already keeps, open the type and choose Copy. Give the new type its Name, its Code and the Practice area it sits in, and choose Copy. The copy carries the same stage set, billing default, bill layout and retention; its own copies of the folders, workflows, approval routes and custom fields; and is named beside the original on the deadline rules, document templates and checklist that name it. A copied workflow takes the new type's name after its own, since every workflow's name is the firm's one name for it. The copy is recorded in the audit trail with what was copied.

Stages

Settings, Practice, Stages holds the stage sets a matter runs through, such as pleadings, trial and judgment for a suit. New stage set starts one; on its record, Add stage adds each stage, in order, with Stall after days, after which a matter sitting in that stage is flagged. A matter type names the set its matters use, and the matter register's Time in stage reads against it.

Custom fields

The firm's own fields, grouped in sets shown by practice area or matter type, are described in Custom fields.