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Run the firm · 16

The firm runs like a firm.

Knowing who is overloaded, who is on leave, who has completed their CPD and who can approve what is operational hygiene. It should not require a second system, a spreadsheet and a Friday afternoon.

Roles & permissionsLeave & CPDMatter-scoped chatWorkload & cover
What it does

The operational half of a practice

The firm’s directory

Who is in, what they do and who to ask — visible to everyone, so a new joiner stops asking the person next to them. Roles and access live in roles & access.

Leave, CPD and cover

Requests and approvals, development hours against targets, and cover visible before it becomes a crisis rather than after.

Announcements that are read

Firm notices where people already are, instead of an email everyone archives. Internal messages about a file stay with the file.

What it means for you

What partners notice

  • Leave and cover are one conversation, because the request and the work it affects are in the same place. For the full picture see workload & capacity.
  • Leave goes through one channel, and cover is arranged with the same calendar the work is on.
  • CPD stops being a December panic and becomes a running total.
  • New joiners are productive quickly, because the firm’s rules are already in the system.

Roles, permissions and administrative settings are the firm’s own — changed by the firm, not by us.

EM
Eleanor Marsh — Managing PartnerCPD 9/12 h · archive permission
MFA ✓
NB
Nora Bennett — Associate (invited)first sign-in · forced change enforced
PENDING
Leave request — Daniel Reeves3 days · 21–23 Oct · cover: EM
APPROVE
Workload this month: 6 people · 41 open matterscapacity visible per team
In practice

The operational rhythm

Small things, done consistently.

Set the roles once

Permissions by role, so access matches how the firm actually works — and changes are recorded.

Run leave through the system

Requests, approvals and cover, visible to the people who plan the work.

Keep development visible

CPD hours per fee-earner against the firm’s expectations.

Watch capacity

Workload per person and per team, before you promise a deadline.

Questions lawyers ask

Questions about running the firm

Yes. Permissions are assigned per role and adjusted as the firm changes; the hierarchy is yours, not a fixed template.

Yes, where a firm uses internal allocation — it is recorded with the matter so it is not reconstructed at year end.

Chat is scoped to the matter, and the same access rules apply as the file itself.

Set your firm’s roles up in the demo

Bring your team list and the way you divide work. We will show you how the permissions and the workload view would look.

Practice Notes

One email a month, for people who run firms.

How other firms handle the parts nobody enjoys — trust reconciliation, chasing debt, keeping procedure written down. No product announcements unless something genuinely changes for you.

Please enter a valid work email.

Monthly. Double opt-in. One click to leave. See the privacy notice.

Prefer to see the whole thing first? All three lists.