External law firm access for legal departments.
Outside counsel work inside your system on the matters they are instructed on — and on nothing else, enforced at the record rather than by hiding a screen.
You instruct three firms. Each one works in its own system, and everything you know about what they are doing arrives as an attachment.
So the department's own record of a matter is assembled from emails, and the version of a document you are looking at may not be the version they are working on. The alternative — giving an external firm a login to your system — is not something anyone will authorise unless they can be certain what that login can reach.
Outside counsel inside your system, safely.
- 01
External firms are a separate kind of user
They are not internal staff with a narrower role. External access is its own audience with its own boundary, so the question of what an outside firm can reach has a structural answer rather than a configuration answer.
- 02
Scoped to the matters they act on
An instructed firm sees the matters it is instructed on. The rest of the department — other matters, other counsel, other counterparties — is not merely hidden from their screens; it is not retrievable.
- 03
Enforced at the record, not the interface
The boundary is applied where the data is read, so it holds however the request arrives. A hidden menu is a design decision; this is an access decision, and the two fail very differently.
- 04
Documents are shared deliberately
Material reaches an external firm because somebody shared it with them, not because it happened to sit on a matter they can open. Both sides then work from the same document rather than from two attachments of the same name.
- 05
The department keeps its own record
Instructions, correspondence and documents accumulate on the matter in your system rather than in the external firm's, so the record survives changing counsel.
What changes for the department.
- An external firm sees its matters and cannot retrieve anyone else's.
- The boundary holds however the request is made, not just on screen.
- Documents are shared because someone shared them, not by proximity.
- Both sides work from one document rather than two attachments.
- The matter record stays with you when counsel changes.
- Giving an outside firm access becomes something you can authorise.
Everything included, in one place.
A separate audience, not a narrower role
External counsel are modelled as their own class of user with their own boundary, rather than as internal staff whose permissions have been trimmed — which is the difference between a limit and an oversight waiting to happen.
Access enforced where data is read
Scoping is applied at the service layer, so it applies identically whether the request comes from the web app or a mobile client. Nothing is protected only by not being linked to.
Matter-level scope
An instructed firm reaches the matters it is instructed on and no others, and identifiers from outside that scope do not resolve for them.
Deliberate document sharing
Documents become visible to an external firm by being shared, so what leaves the department is a decision somebody made rather than a consequence of where a file was saved.
One version, both sides
Shared material lives on the matter record, so internal and external teams are looking at the same document instead of two copies drifting apart in two inboxes.
The record stays with you
Correspondence and documents accumulate on your matter rather than in the instructed firm's system, so changing counsel does not mean losing the history.
Common questions about this feature.
No. Access is scoped to the specific matters a firm is instructed on; the rest of the department's work is not visible to them.
Yes. Fees charged by each external firm are tracked against the matter and budget, so overspend surfaces while it can still be managed.
Works with the rest of the platform.
Service requests
Structured intake so a request arrives with what legal actually needs, agreed turnaround times, and a breach that shows up on the dashboard rather than in a complaint.
Read ›Legal project management
Break the work into ordered steps, each with an owner and its own approvers — sequential or parallel — and let the system say what can happen next.
Read ›See it on your own matters
A short walkthrough with our team, using the kind of work your team handles day to day.