Working in more than one state

The problem this solves

An attorney barred in two states isn't offering two different services. The estate plan is the same engagement, the same intake, the same price; a handful of the documents inside it have to differ, because the statute does. The health care power that works in Arizona is not the one New York expects.

So the platform separates what a document is from the file that says it in a given state. Nothing about the service duplicates. Only the files that must differ, differ.

Instruments and editions

An instrument is a document by identity: the will, the health care power, the engagement letter. An edition is one file that satisfies it for a particular jurisdiction, and where the document differs for a couple, for a particular party structure.

You never set an instrument up. Uploading a template creates one, and a document with a single file goes on looking exactly as it always did: one row in the library, with a quiet note reading 1 edition. The vocabulary only surfaces when there is a second file to tell apart.

A matter's governing state

Every matter carries a governing state, and it is the fact that decides which edition each of the matter's documents generates from. You set it when you open the matter, and you change it later from Edit matter. Its code sits in the matter header alongside the matter's other standing facts.

Where nobody chooses one when the matter opens, it works itself out in a fixed order: what the client said on the way in, where the form asked and they answered, then the client's own address if the firm has one on file, then the firm's primary practice state. An expectation somebody actually stated outranks an inference from their address, and none of the three is more than a starting point.

Setting the state re-points the documents that haven't been drafted yet, so a matter whose state you correct stops speaking for the wrong one. It happens on the first answer and on every change after it. It reaches every document but the engagement letter, which never re-points, and only what is still undrafted: a document already produced keeps the state it was produced under, and says so on its row, because a draft is history rather than a pending choice. Clearing the state back to none moves nothing, since there is no longer a state to resolve against.

Every state is always selectable. Bar admissions inform the firm's own judgment; they never filter the list. The states the firm demonstrably works in are grouped at the top so the fifty-option list leads with the handful you use.

The determination is the attorney's, and Edit matter is where it's made. A firm that works in more than one state can, if it wants to, also ask on its public contact form: Which state should your documents be prepared under?, with the states the firm practices in as the choices and a line saying the attorney will confirm. It's the client stating an expectation, not settling the question, and it gives a matter that arrives on its own a better first answer than an address alone. Firms working in a single state never see the question and their form is unchanged; the question is added on the form itself, in form editing.

Seeing state on the boards

Once a firm works in more than one state, the funnel and pipeline boards start carrying it. Each matter's row shows its state code, and a matter that hasn't got one shows a dash in an attention tone, because a missing state is the thing worth acting on rather than a set one.

Above the board, a filter track counts the matters in each state, with All at one end and None at the other where any matter is still without one. Beside it, a switch changes what the board groups by: Stage, as it always has, or State, which keeps the same rows and re-sorts them into a section per state with stage demoted to a band inside each. Both are per board, and neither changes anything about the matters themselves.

A firm working in a single state sees none of this. The boards look exactly as they always did.

Adding a state to a document

Adding a state is uploading a file and answering two questions: which instrument this file belongs to, and which jurisdiction it serves. Where the document differs for a couple, a third question asks the party structure.

A file joining an instrument that already exists inherits that instrument's data contract, the facts every edition of it needs. Tags that match are bound automatically, and the upload asks only about the genuinely new decisions, the places where this state's file says something the contract hasn't heard of yet. A second state's edition is a few decisions, not a mapping done over from scratch. Mapping itself is covered in documents and templates.

Seeing where the gaps are

The templates library carries a jurisdiction coverage card once the firm works in more than one state. For each state it reads how many of the firm's instruments have an edition there, and a plain readiness word: Ready, Partial, or Not started. Scoping the library to a state narrows the list to that state's view.

Coverage is worked out from the library itself. There is nothing to enter and nothing to keep in step, which also means the numbers cannot disagree with the files.

Where an instrument has no edition for a state you work in, the library shows that gap as its own row, in place, rather than leaving you to notice an absence. The row carries Add edition, which opens the upload with the instrument and the jurisdiction already filled in.

An instrument that exists in one state on purpose is not a gap. It reads as a fact and stays out of the count.

The instrument page

Opening an instrument shows the whole picture for one document: its data contract, the editions that satisfy it, which packages use it, and its posture. You can rename it, archive it, and restore it, the same way templates archive and restore elsewhere in the library.

Applicability says what kind of document this is: serves any state (one file is enough), varies by state (each state needs its own file), or exists in one state only. Each reads with its consequence beside it, so the setting says what it does rather than only what it is.

When a state has no edition yet

The second setting on an instrument answers the question that matters on the day a gap is real, and there are two honest answers.

• Wait for a local edition. Nothing is produced for that state, and the matter says an edition is needed. This is the posture for the engagement letter and for statutory forms, where another state's text is exactly the failure the whole arrangement exists to prevent.
• Generate from another state, flagged for review. The document is produced from an edition that does exist, and the matter carries an amber notice naming the document, the state whose text was used, and the state the matter is governed by. This suits drafted prose an attorney adapts anyway.

That amber notice is the only amber signal in this whole area, which is what keeps it meaningful. It tells you what clears it: reviewing the document, or a local edition landing. Coverage numbers and readiness words are deliberately toneless, because a state you haven't authored yet is a plan, not a problem.

Engagement letters always wait. A letter goes out for signature, and a signed letter carrying the wrong state's terms is not something a review flag can fix afterwards.

Where you practice

Settings → Firm holds one setting and one read-out.

The setting is the firm's primary practice state. It gates nothing; it supplies the default on a new matter and the ordering everywhere states are listed. See firm settings.

Below it, once more than one state is in play, Where you practice lists each state with how many matters sit there and how much of the library covers it. It is worked out from your matters and your library, and it is not a setting: there is no list to maintain and nothing to keep in step with reality.

Packages don't carry a state

A package names the documents an engagement produces, not the files. "Estate plan" is one package whether the matter is governed by Arizona or New York, and the right edition of each document is picked when the matter is set up.

Because that resolution happens per matter, the package's read-only view can show you the answer in advance: pick a state and each document row says what a matter governed there would do, whether it resolves to a named file, is omitted because the document is another state's only, or is waiting on an edition. It is a preview, not a mode. Nothing about the package changes.

Nothing appears until you need it

A firm that works in one state sees none of this. No coverage card, no state-scoped view, no missing-edition rows, no governing-state field, no fallback notice, no practice read-out. The features arrive with the second state and not before, which is why the first one costs nothing.