The client portal

If your attorney's firm runs on Per Stirpes, you have a client portal on the firm's own web address. It shows your engagement the way the firm sees it: where things stand, the documents shared with you, anything waiting on you, and your invoices.

Signing in

There is no password. The firm sends sign-in links by email; click the link, and you're in. Links are single-use and expire after a while for your protection, so you request a fresh one whenever you need to get back in.

Every link opens first on a short page from your firm that shows the email address the link signs in, with a single Continue button. Check that the address is yours, then click Continue and you carry on as normal. The page is there so a link only ever signs in the person it was sent to, and because mail systems sometimes open a link on their way to delivering it: nothing happens until you click, so your link is still waiting for you when you arrive. If the page reads Request a fresh link instead, that link can no longer be used; Send me a fresh link on that page takes you to where you can ask for a new one.

You don't have to wait for the firm to send one. The firm's portal has an access page where you enter the email the firm has on file for your engagement and a new sign-in link is sent to that address. If a link you already have has lapsed, the expired-link page offers the same one-click request. It works for anyone the firm has shared a document with, not only its clients, so a trustee sent a copy of the trust can get back in the same way.

Asking twice in a row doesn't get you in faster, and the page will ask you to wait a moment before it sends another. Each new link replaces the one before it, so if a message is already on its way, the quickest route back in is the most recent one in your inbox.

A few pages don't offer a new link, because one wouldn't help. If the page says it couldn't sign you in and asks you to contact your firm, the link itself worked but something on the firm's side needs sorting out, so get in touch with them and they'll get you in. If it says there have been too many sign-in attempts from your network, wait about ten minutes and open the link in your firm's message again.

If you're already signed in when you open an older link, the page says so rather than telling you the link expired, and offers to take you straight through. If the person signed in isn't you, which happens on a shared computer, Sign out at the top of the page and ask for a link of your own.

A lapsed link keeps its errand. If the one that expired was taking you somewhere in particular, a questionnaire, a booking page, a document the firm shared, the replacement takes you to that same place rather than dropping you at the portal home to find it yourself.

When you're done, you can sign out from the portal header, a good habit on a shared computer. Signing out ends your session on that device only; a phone or another computer you've signed in on stays signed in.

If you're signed out partway through something, filling in a form or sending a file, the page says so and offers Get a new sign-in link. It opens in a new tab, so the page you were on stays where it is, and the new link brings you back to the same place. Changes made while you're signed out aren't saved, so sign in again before carrying on.

What you'll find

The portal opens on an Overview that puts your matter front and center, shows how far along it is, and points you at the next thing that needs you, so you're never guessing what to do. From there, tabs across the top:

• Documents are the drafts and executed documents the firm has shared with you, ready to download, and any file the firm has shared from its own records sits in the same list. When the firm chooses to notify you about shared documents, you get one email listing everything new, with a link straight to them, rather than a separate message per document. Most arrive as PDFs; if the firm shares an editable Word file instead, that's a deliberate choice on their part, usually because they want your changes. When the firm revises a document it has already shared, you usually keep the copy you were given until they share the new version, which then takes its place. Sometimes a draft steps out of the list while it's revised instead, and comes back when they've reviewed the new version and shared it again. Something shared with you from a matter you're not a client of, a trust you're the trustee of, say, appears under Shared with you.

  The firm may also share your documents gathered into one entry: a single PDF holding them in order, with the documents it contains listed beneath it. It's called Complete estate plan when it holds your whole plan, with View your plan to open it, and Estate plan documents when it covers only part of it, such as one service the firm is handling, with View documents. The entry you have stays put until the firm shares a newer one with you or withdraws it. If one of its documents is later shared again on its own, that newer copy is listed separately, so the entry never claims to hold something it doesn't.

• Intake is anything the firm needs you to fill in, usually your questionnaire. Once you've submitted a form it moves to a Submitted list on the same tab, where Update lets you go back and change your answers, and where the firm can ask you to look at one again; see the questionnaire.

• Files is where you send the firm files they've asked for (a deed, a beneficiary statement), kept together by matter. PDFs, Word and Excel files, CSV and text files, and images are accepted, up to 4 MB each. The firm is notified when you upload. Attachments you've emailed to the firm that it has added to your matter appear here too, marked Received by email.

• Invoices show what's been billed and what's been paid, opening with the amount due across everything. Each one opens to its lines, its payments, and a copy of the invoice to download. Payment by card or bank transfer is built in; see payments and signing for how it works.

Your firm contacts appear on the overview too, so you always know who you're working with.

Couples

On a joint engagement, both spouses see the shared matter. Each of you with your own email address has your own sign-in; a couple who share one address sign in through it together. You each have your own questionnaire, and either of you can fill in the other's; see the questionnaire for how that works.

Sharing an email address with someone else

Sometimes two people the firm works with use the same email address without being a couple on one matter, such as two relatives the firm is helping separately. Sign-in links for both of you arrive at that address, and the portal opens on one of you. When that happens, Switch person appears at the top of the portal beside the name, listing the other person by first name with their matter. Choosing them switches the portal to their view in this browser; the name at the top always tells you whose view you're looking at.