Retention classes

A retention class says how long a set of records is kept, from which day, and the law or rule behind it. The firm's classes are under Settings, Work management, Retention classes.

Shipped classes and the firm's own

Each kind of record the system keeps, such as matter files, client account records or the audit log, has a class shipped for it, with a default period and its source. Its period, its rule and what destruction takes may be changed; it is never deleted, and it keeps the day its kind counts from.

Add class adds a class of the firm's own, such as wills kept for good, or conveyancing files kept fifteen years. Say:

• what it is for;
• how long it is kept, and whether that is the least the firm must keep or the life of the record;
• the day it counts from: the day the matter closes, the matter's last activity, or the day of the record itself;
• the law or rule behind it, and what destruction takes.

Still waiting on the firm's lawyer marks a period the firm has not yet confirmed. The classes page names every such period at its top.

What a class covers

A class of the firm's own covers nothing until the firm says so, on its page under What it covers, with Add coverage. It may cover:

• every record of a kind, such as every matter file;
• the matter files of one matter type, or one practice area;
• the documents filed under one category, such as wills.

A record is kept under the narrowest class that covers it: a category of document first, then its matter type, then its practice area, then a class over the whole kind, and last the class shipped for the kind. A matter type's page shows the class its files resolve to.

Something already covered by another class is moved only once you say so. A class of the firm's own may be deleted from its page; what it covered goes back to the next class from the next nightly review.

Kept back from an earlier destruction

Where a category of document is kept longer than the rest of its file, the rest of the file may be destroyed on its own day and those documents are kept back. The review list raises them again on their own day.