Staff access

Roles and access

Everyone on the firm's roster has one of three roles: Attorney, Admin, or Staff. Attorneys and admins have Full access: they can do everything, including managing the team. Access is configured only for Staff.

A Staff member starts at Standard, the set every staff member begins with. Standard covers the everyday work of a matter: the matter and its people, the client's documents, intake, starting invoice drafts, recording payments, and the messages clients receive. It also lets them look at the firm's setup (engagement letters, document templates, intake forms, and packages) without changing it. When an attorney or admin gives a Staff member more than that, or less of what can be taken away, their access reads Custom.

The Access column on the Staff tab shows each person's state at a glance: Full access, Standard, or Custom.

Who can change it

Only attorneys and admins change someone's access. They open the edit button on the person's row, which opens a panel holding the person's name, their role, and their access, all saved with one Save. If someone else changes the same person while the panel is open, reload before saving so you're working from what's there now.

Everyone else can see their own: Your access, on their own row, opens the same panel read-only.

Changing a Staff member to Attorney or Admin shows Full access in place of the table. Changing them back to Staff brings back the access they had before. Nobody can change their own role, and the firm always keeps at least one attorney or admin who can sign in.

The access table

The panel lays access out as a table: one row per area of work, and three columns, View, Edit, and Finalize. Each cell is named for what it allows, and a dot marks a cell that differs from Standard. Some cells read Always: that part of the work is open to every staff member and isn't something to switch off.

The rows fall into two groups.

Client work

• Matters and people. Viewing and editing matters, clients, intake requests, uploads, and notes is always open. Manage clients (Finalize) adds the changes to who the firm represents on a matter: adding a second client, making someone primary, replacing or removing a client.
• Record decisions. Decide (Finalize) is accepting changes into the client record: answers from the review queue, record updates that come from a document, and the fee and scope a signed letter settles.
• Client documents. Viewing and editing the documents and letters prepared for clients is always open.
• Billing. Issue invoices (Finalize) is issuing, editing a draft's lines, and correcting an issue date. See billing.
• Payments. See payments (View) opens the payments register. It doesn't open payouts or the payment account.

Firm setup

• Engagement letters, Document templates, Intake forms, and Packages and Catalog each have three levels: View to look (on in Standard), Edit to work on drafts, and Publish to publish, archive, and make the changes that reach clients.
• Client messages. Viewing and editing the messages clients receive is always open.
• Firm settings and integrations. Change settings (Edit) covers the firm's profile, offices, brand, insurance plans, website inquiries, the switches that let the platform email a new inquiry on its own, the cloud drive, and the firm's email and signing senders. Settings pages call this Firm settings → Edit.

The levels build on each other. Checking Publish also checks Edit and View, and clearing View clears what depends on it; the panel says what else it turned on or off as you go. Reset to Standard puts a Custom set back to the default.

Billing actions

Below the table, Billing actions holds three permissions for changing money the firm has already committed to, all off in Standard: Correct invoices, Correct payments, and Refund payments. What each one opens is set out in billing. None of them opens the payments register.

What stays with attorneys and admins

Some work isn't grantable at all. Managing staff and their access, personal calendar and mailbox connections, the payment account itself, payouts, and the account's bank and tax details stay with attorneys and admins. The foot of the panel lists these beside what every staff member can always do, so nobody has to guess where the line is.

Working without a permission

A Staff member without Edit on a setup area still opens it. They see the published version of each letter, template, form, or package, with its history, and can inspect one that has never been published. They can't change it, and a newer draft someone is working on stays out of view until they have Edit. A published Word file can be downloaded with View; an unpublished one needs Edit.

Elsewhere, an action someone can't take is either not offered or, where it is, says plainly that an attorney or admin can give them access. Nothing about access hides a matter: everyone on the team works the same matters.

Publishing templates and letters

Publishing is where setup reaches clients, so it's the level that matters most for templates. Edit lets someone prepare a draft; Publish lets them make it the version new work uses. Publish is also what turns a published browser edition on or off for new work, with Use for new documents (Use for new letters for a letter) and Disable for new use.

The engagement letter slots sit between two areas. Uploading a new letter into a slot needs Engagement letters → Publish. Moving a template between the library and a slot, whether assigning, replacing, or unassigning one, needs Publish on both Engagement letters and Document templates, because the move turns a library template into a letter or back again. Someone with only one of the two sees the slot without the controls that move templates in and out. See documents and templates.

Ending someone's access

End access, in the panel, is a separate, confirmed action. The person loses access to the firm right away, even in a browser where they're still signed in, and their history stays. An attorney or admin can end their own access only while another attorney or admin who can sign in remains. Someone whose access was ended can't be invited again; restoring their access, or ending a sign-in they still hold, is a support request.