The People tab is where you record the people and organisations involved in a matter — the client, the other side, agents, lenders — and give each one a role. The same tab lists the staff working the matter, under Our team, so we'll keep the two clearly apart.
The parties, not your team
The people on a matter are the external people and organisations connected to it — buyer, seller, solicitor on the other side, lender, and so on — grouped as Our client, Other side and Others involved. The colleagues in your firm who are actually doing the work sit under Our team, covered in the next lesson. Keeping these apart matters: a party's role controls what they might see in the client portal, whereas a team member's role controls who owns and works the file.
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1
Open the People tab
Open a matter and click the People tab. Each person shows their role, their ID check (if your firm uses them) and their client portal access. A role this kind of work needs and nobody holds yet is marked Required, so you can see at a glance which parties are still missing.
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2
Add someone and give them a role
The Add someone row offers the roles this kind of work expects, such as Purchaser or Lender, plus Other. Click one, find the contact by name or email, or add a new one, and they join the matter in that role. A new contact is saved to Contacts, so it can be reused on other matters.
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Where the roles come from
The roles offered aren't hard-coded — each kind of work defines them. Go to Settings › How your work runs › Kinds of work, open the kind of work and choose its People tab to see and change the roles its matters expect. If your firm needs a role that isn't offered, that's where it's added.
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Portal access is granted conditionally
Adding someone doesn't automatically invite them to the client portal. The Client portal column shows each person's access, with Invite or Give access where it's allowed — so a client-facing party may gain access while an opposing solicitor won't. You decide who is invited; adding a role simply makes a contact eligible where appropriate.
Tips & pitfalls
- Search finds people already in your contacts, and you can add a new contact from the same place if the party isn't there yet.
- Don't confuse the client (a party) with the fee earner running the file (a team member). Roles look similar but do very different jobs.
Key takeaways
- The People tab holds the parties on a matter; the roles offered come from the kind of work
- Change the roles a kind of work expects in Settings › Kinds of work › its People tab
- Portal access is conditional on the role, not granted to every contact automatically
Put the lesson into practice.
Book a guided session and our team will help you configure MatterFirst for your own practice.
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