The Legal Requests feature gives companies a standard way for other teams to request help and support from the legal department. For example, if R&D has an invention, they can request that the legal department assess its patentability.
This is helpful in several ways: it establishes a formal channel for other teams to inform the legal department of upcoming needs or projects/projects and it saves admins time otherwise spent gathering details offline from other teams to create new matters from scratch.
Existing SimpleLegal users can submit legal requests. Admins can also grant the Legal Request Only user role to other people in your organization who need limited SimpleLegal access to select, complete, submit, and track the status of legal request forms.
This article summarizes how the legal request feature is configured and the overall workflow.
Setting up Legal Requests
See below for the requirements users must meet to start submitting requests in your environment.
Notification Settings
Customers can configure the following email notification settings once the feature is enabled:
- Requestor Email Notifications: Whether users who submit requests will remain informed of activity on their request via email, such as status changes (e.g., approval/rejection).
- Display Matter Lead on Requestor Email Notifications: Whether the name and email address of the Matter Lead (when any is assigned) are displayed in request email notifications.
Legal Request Forms & Admin Notifications
At least one legal request form must be created and published for users to submit requests, and each form must be assigned to at least one active matter template. This is required so that, if approved and converted to a draft matter, the request inherits the required/optional fields from the template.
When a legal request is submitted, this triggers an admin notification for review. If the request is approved by an admin, it is converted into a draft matter and then published.
If your company needs multiple legal request forms, you can set and manage which admins are notified of new requests for each form. For example, if you need forms for three matter groups, you can assign a different admin to receive notifications for each form. If multiple requests are submitted in a day, they are bundled into a single daily notification for the admin.
Admins can access pending legal requests from the Items Need My Attention section of their SimpleLegal dashboards or by going to Matters > Review Legal Requests.
Creating a New Legal Request
To create a new Legal Request, click on the New Legal Request option in the upper-right-hand corner menu.
The New Legal Request form will appear. Choose the type of Legal Request from the drop-down menu and fill out the associated fields (these fields will change depending on the type of request).
Click Submit to send in the legal request.
You can see the existing Legal Requests in the Matters section under My Legal Requests.
In the Legal Requests area, you can:
- Choose to display All, Pending, Approved, or Rejected invoices.
- See pertinent details to the request, including the Name, Date Received, Reviewed by, Legal Request Status, Matter Status, Client Matter ID, and Status Last Updated.
Use the search bar to search for a specific legal request. You can also use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side to choose how many requests you want to display on the screen. Click the up-down arrows next to each column to sort by that column.
Click the New Request button to create a new request directly from this menu.
Reviewing Legal Requests
Click on the Review Legal Requests option to review and approve submitted legal requests.
In the Review Legal Requests screen, you can switch between All requests, Pending requests, Approved requests, and Rejected requests. The main screen of each will show the request name, date received, last modified, requested by, type, reviewed by, Request Legal Status, Status Last Updated, and any Reviewer Comment.
- Choose to display All, Pending, Approved, or Rejected invoices.
- See pertinent details to the request, including the Name, Date Received, Reviewed by, Legal Request Status, Matter Status, Client Matter ID, and Status Last updated.
Use the search bar to search for a specific legal request. You can also use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side to choose how many requests you want to display on the screen. Click the up-down arrows next to each column to sort by that column. Use the Download button to download the request information.
Click on the request Name to view details. Here, you'll see a list of important details that will change depending on the type of request. You can add Reviewer Comments to any request. Each request detail will also include an Action button if applicable (Reject, Approve). You can also Create a Matter directly from each legal request.
