Practice areas, matter types and custom fields

Practice areas

The firm starts with fifteen practice areas, from litigation and criminal law to conveyancing and corporate work. Rename, reorder, add or deactivate them under Settings, Practice areas.

Each area's record lists its People, added with Add person, and its heads of practice, chosen with Make head of practice. A permission granted at practice area scope reaches the areas a person belongs to, so membership decides, for example, whose time a head of practice may see.

Matter types

Under each area sit the kinds of matter the firm opens, such as a land suit or a share transfer; Add matter type on the area's record adds one. A matter type sets what every matter of that kind starts with:

• How it is Billed by default as.
• Its Stage set.
• The Client due diligence risk its KYC starts at.
• Whether it Needs a conflict check before it opens.
• Whether it Opens a case record for court work.
• How long its closed file is Kept for, or that it is kept indefinitely, as wills, deeds and titles are.

Stages

Settings, Stages holds the stage sets a matter runs through, such as pleadings, trial and judgment for a suit. New stage set starts one; on its record, Add stage adds each stage, in order, with Stall after days, after which a matter sitting in that stage is flagged. A matter type names the set its matters use, and the matter register's Time in stage reads against it.

Custom fields

When the firm needs to record something the system does not ask for, add a custom field under Settings, Custom fields: for a kind of record, or for one matter type only. Choose its type (text, number, date, choice), whether it is required, its order and its help text. Dates and numbers stay searchable and sortable like any other field.