Ethical walls

What a wall does

An ethical wall separates a matter or a client from named people or roles, usually because they act, or have acted, on the other side. For everyone it shuts out, the walled record does not exist: it is missing from lists, counts, search results, the calendar, task lists, notifications, financial totals and reports.

Nobody outside the wall is shown a refusal to explain away. A person who follows an old link sees the same "not found" as for a record that never existed.

Put up a wall

1. Open Settings, then Ethical walls, and choose Raise wall.
2. Under What the wall protects, choose the Type, a matter or a client, the record, and give the Reason.
3. Under Who is excluded, choose the Users and Roles shut out.
4. Choose Raise wall. Before it goes up, the system shows who comes off a matter's team; a wall that would shut out a matter's responsible partner cannot be raised until the matter has another. Each person shut out is told they have been placed on a restricted list, without being told what the list is about.

Lift a wall

Lifting takes two people: one chooses Request lift with a reason, and a second, holding the permission to approve, chooses Approve lift and types LIFT to confirm. Somebody cannot approve the lifting they asked for themselves. Both steps are recorded for good.

Conflict checks behind a wall

The compliance function sees conflict results in full, whatever walls stand. A fee earner who is walled from a matching record sees the result redacted, so a check never leaks what a wall protects.