Lesson 5 of 8 · 8 min

Adding contacts and roles

Add the parties on a matter and give them roles.

Lesson 5 of 8

The Contacts 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. This is different from the staff working the matter, so we'll keep the two clearly apart.

Contacts are the parties, not your team

The contacts on a matter are the external people and organisations connected to it — buyer, seller, solicitor on the other side, lender, and so on. The colleagues in your firm who are actually doing the work sit in the separate Matter Team panel, covered in the next lesson. Keeping these apart matters: a contact's role controls what they might see in the client portal, whereas a matter team member's role controls who owns and works the file.

  1. 1

    Open the Contacts tab

    Open a matter and click the Contacts tab. You'll see the "Contacts & Roles" list. If your matter type defines expected roles (from role templates), you'll see suggestion pills for the roles that still need filling — a quick way to add exactly the parties this kind of matter needs.

    The Contacts tab is where you add the parties on a matter and give each a role.
  2. 2

    Add a contact and assign a role

    Click Add Contact (or one of the role suggestion pills) to open the "Add Contact to Matter" dialog. Search your existing contacts by name or email, then choose the role for the one you pick and click Add. The available roles come from your matter type's role templates — so a conveyancing matter offers different roles than a family-law matter. If a party isn't in your contacts yet, create them first and they become reusable across matters.

    Open Add Contact, then search by name or email to add a contact and pick their role.
  3. 3

    Where the roles come from

    The list of roles you can choose isn't hard-coded — it's driven by Contact Roles under Settings (/app/settings/role-templates). There you can see and manage the roles available for each matter type. If your firm needs a role that isn't offered, this is where it's added.

    Contact roles are defined per matter type in Settings › Contact Roles.
  4. 4

    Portal access is granted conditionally

    Adding a contact doesn't automatically invite them to the client portal. Portal access is only granted when the contact's role is one that's eligible for it — so a client-facing party may gain access while an opposing solicitor won't. You control the portal separately; adding a role simply makes a contact eligible where appropriate.

Tips & pitfalls

  • Contact search only finds people already in your contacts — create a new contact first if the party isn't there yet.
  • Don't confuse the client (a contact) with the fee earner running the file (a matter team member). Roles look similar but do very different jobs.

Key takeaways

  • Contacts are the parties on a matter; roles come from the matter type's role templates
  • Add and manage the available roles in Settings › Contact Roles
  • Portal access is conditional on the role, not granted to every contact automatically
Navigating matter views Building your matter team

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