Emails

Most of an engagement still happens by email: the client's questions, your answers, the document they send back. Once an attorney connects the mailbox they write to clients from, that correspondence appears where the work is. A matter's Emails tab shows the email with the people on it, a person's Emails tab shows everything with them, and you can read, reply and write new messages from either, sending from your own address.

This is the firm's own correspondence, written by a person. The messages the platform sends in the firm's name (invitations, invoices, reminders) are a separate inventory, covered in client communications.

Connecting your mailbox

Mailboxes are personal. Each attorney or admin connects their own, from the Your mailbox card in Settings → Integrations, with Connect email. The connection runs through your Google account, so you sign in to Google with the address you write to clients from. If your Google calendar is already connected for consultation booking, the button reads Enable email instead, and the two share one connection from then on.

Before you sign in, the card says plainly what connecting does and doesn't do. The part worth knowing in advance: Google asks for access to the whole mailbox, but which messages the platform keeps is decided by the platform, by whether a message is with someone your firm knows. Connecting reaches no further back than today. Earlier email is a separate, deliberate step (below).

Nobody else can connect, read the private side of, or send from your mailbox, whatever their role. A colleague who opens the same card sees a note saying connections are personal, and where to read the email that's been kept.

What is kept, and where it shows

A message is kept when it's with someone the firm knows: it's to or from a person on one of your matters, it's a reply in a conversation already kept, or you sent it from a matter. Your own address and your colleagues' never count as "someone the firm knows", so an attorney who also happens to be named on a matter doesn't pull their whole mailbox onto it.

Everything else stays private to you. For a message with nobody the firm knows, the platform holds no content at all, only enough to recognize it later, and nothing of it is shown anywhere.

On a matter

A matter's Emails tab shows email with anyone on the matter, from the day the matter opened, along with replies in those conversations and anything sent from the matter. Because the list is worked out from who is on the matter rather than filed by hand, it stays in step with the matter: add someone and their email since the matter opened appears with them, remove someone and theirs goes. A person on two open matters has their email shown on both.

When a matter closes, new email from its people stops appearing on it, though replies in conversations it already shows still arrive. Reopen the matter and the gap fills in.

The tab reads in views: Inbox for what came in, Sent for what went out, Drafts for your own unsent drafts, and Removed once something has been taken off the matter. You can search by subject and by who a message is with, and narrow the list to one person or to messages with attachments. Search never matches inside a message's text.

On a person

A person's Emails tab lists every kept message with that person, whatever matter it's about, including ones about no matter at all. It has Inbox and Sent; drafts and removal belong to matters.

Reading

Unread is personal. A new message shows a dot and a stronger subject until you open it, and the matter's Emails tab carries a count of what you haven't read yet. Opening a message marks it read for you and nobody else. Mark as unread, in the message's menu, puts it back and it stays that way until you open it again. Email from before you joined the firm, and email brought in by an import, never arrives as unread.

A message's attachments show as cards beneath it, each saying what happened to the file (below).

Writing and replying

New message starts an email from the matter; Reply all is the main action on an open message, with Reply and Forward in its menu. Only the owner of a connected mailbox writes from it, and only when that mailbox can send. When yours can't, the reply actions stay visible but inactive, with a sentence saying why: someone else's mailbox, a connection that needs reconnecting, or permission to send that was never granted.

There is one recipient field, To. There's no Cc and no Bcc, and a Reply all puts everyone who was copied into To, so every recipient is visible to you before you send. People on the matter and your colleagues are offered by name. To write to someone else, type their full address and choose Use it; the address is marked as outside the matter and has to be confirmed before the message can go. That's asked every time, for opposing counsel or a bank as much as for a stranger, so a mistyped address is caught rather than sent.

The message body takes bold, italic, lists and links. Nothing is added for you, including a signature, so sign off as you would anywhere else. A reply keeps the earlier message quoted beneath what you write.

Sending is two steps. Review & send shows the message exactly as it will go, and Send sends that version; change anything after reviewing and you review again. A sent message appears in Sent once your mailbox reports it. A closed matter accepts no new mail.

From a person's tab, the composer asks which matter the message is from, with No matter as a choice. A message sent from a matter appears on that matter and can carry its files; a message from no matter appears on that person's matters by who it's with, and can't carry attachments.

Drafts

Save & close is the only thing that saves a draft; nothing saves on its own, and closing with unsaved changes asks before discarding them. A draft is private to its author and listed under Drafts on the matter it was started from. Discard one from its row's menu.

Attaching files

Attach files picks from what's already on the matter: documents that have been reviewed (or signed), and the matter's files, including ones that arrived by email, which are labelled as such so you know you're forwarding someone else's document. Word drafts and documents checked out to Word aren't offered, and the picker says how many were held back. The whole message has a size limit, which the picker counts against as you select.

A document drafted in the document workspace is offered as its current saved copy, reviewed or not. Selecting it makes a PDF of the text as last saved, a copy for this email rather than the document's PDF of record, so unsaved edits in an open editor aren't included, and once the message is sent, later edits don't change what went. If the document is saved again before you send, select it again so the copy matches. A copy still carrying an unanswered question says so on its card. Emailing a copy doesn't mark the document reviewed or share it.

Attaching a document to an email doesn't share it in the client portal. If the client should also find it there, share it from the matter as usual.

When a send needs attention

If a message you sent didn't go cleanly, the list's footer says how many need attention, and opening it gives each one's reason in a sentence: the mailbox needed reconnecting, a file was too large, an attachment was no longer available. Reconnecting answers only the first of those. The platform never sends a message twice to settle an uncertain outcome, so check the reason before writing it again.

Attachments that arrive by email

An attachment on a kept message is saved to each matter the message appears on, in the matter's files under Collect, and the attachment's card in the message says so. While it's being saved the card reads Saving. On a closed matter it reads Held, and is saved when the matter is reopened. A file that can't be saved, because it's too large or not a type the platform accepts, reads Not saved with a sentence saying why. Signature images and logos are left out.

A file a client sent from their own address is theirs: they can see it in the portal among the files they've sent, and the card says so. Anything else that arrives by email, from opposing counsel, a bank or anyone else, stays private to the firm until you share it.

The firm can also choose to mirror emailed attachments to its cloud drive. That option is off by default, and lives on the drive card in Settings → Integrations.

Removing a message from a matter

Sometimes a message lands on a matter it isn't about, usually because its person is on two. Remove from matter, in the message's menu, takes it off that matter after a confirmation. It stays everywhere else it appears, and on the person's own tab. Removed messages are listed under Removed, where Put back on matter returns one. Removing a message never deletes a file it brought; one already saved stays on the matter until you remove it there.

Turning capture off for a person

At the foot of a person's Emails tab, Do not capture this person's email stops the firm keeping new email through them and hides what's already kept from every matter and from their tab. It applies at your firm only, to every mailbox. Turning it off again brings their existing email back.

Importing earlier email

Import earlier email, on the Your mailbox card, looks back through your mailbox for email with the people on your active matters, from the day each matter opened. Preview comes first: it counts what it would find, per matter, and keeps nothing. Import these then brings it in, in the background, with progress on the card. Running it again is safe, because a message already kept is skipped. Imported email arrives already read, and it doesn't reach closed matters; reopen one and preview again if you need it.

Pausing and disconnecting

Pause capture stops new email being kept while leaving you able to send; Resume capture starts again. Disconnect email stops both. Email already kept for your clients stays where it is; everything else the platform held for your mailbox, and your drafts, is deleted. Your calendar stays connected.

Calendar and email share one Google connection, which has two consequences. If it lapses, typically after a password change, consultation booking stops as well, and one Reconnect fixes both. And disconnecting the calendar while email is connected disconnects both, which the calendar's Disconnect calendar and email button says before it does anything.

Who can see what

• Every member of the firm's staff can read the email kept on matters and people, whoever's mailbox it came from.
• Only the mailbox's owner sends from it. No role lets anyone send as someone else.
• Drafts are private to their author.
• Who you Bcc'd on a message, from your own email program, stays visible to you alone.
• Email with nobody the firm knows is never shown to anyone, you included.
• Clients see none of this, apart from the files they sent themselves.