🔐 Employee permissions Rolling out shortly
A new permission system is rolling out late this week or early next week, and we will send you a notification before it goes live. It gives you full control over what each person in your firm can see and do. Start from the built-in Administrator, Standard or Read-only sets and adjust them to suit. The editor follows the Law App menu, so you can hide any menu, tab or button, and set view and edit access separately. Each staff member belongs to one set, you can assign people in bulk, and you can choose a default set for new staff.
Inviting staff. Invite someone by email with their access already set. They get one link and choose their own password. Admin > Employees becomes one page with Active, Invited and Archived tabs, and administrators can lock and unlock a person’s sign-in from there.
File Financials, tab by tab. Each Financials tab has its own access, and tabs someone cannot use are greyed out with a reason rather than hidden. A new raise requisition permission lets fee earners request cheque and EFT payments without full trust access.
Lawrence works as you. Lawrence acts as the person signed in and respects their permissions, and its changes are marked “via Lawrence” in the audit log. Nobody can lock themselves out either: the last person who can manage permissions cannot remove their own access.
When your firm moves across. Administrators go to the Administrator set, everyone else to Standard, and guests to Read-only. Individual adjustments from the old system are not carried across, so please check your staff’s access after the switch. Once the old system is removed there is no switching back.
Setting up your permission sets. The standard permission sets have been shaped by feedback from the firms we work with, along with our own experience working inside law firms, so they should suit most practices from day one. Every firm runs a little differently, though. After the switch, some staff may find they can no longer reach a feature they used before, or you may decide to tighten access to certain areas for some roles. Every permission set can be adjusted to suit, and you can create your own custom sets as well. Our guide, How to configure user permissions in Law App, walks you through it step by step.
💰 Reserved trust funds New
You can now set aside part of a file’s trust balance for a stated purpose, such as barrister’s fees or stamp duty. Reserved funds stay in the trust account, but payments, transfers and requisitions cannot draw on them until the reservation is released. A new Reserved Funds tab sits alongside the Trust Ledger, the file sidebar shows what is reserved and what is available, and a firm-wide report lists every active reservation.
🏠 Settlement statements Improved Beta
The new settlement statements now open in the right state automatically. Law App uses the state of the property first, and if that is not set, the state of your office. The QLD, VIC and WA statements also have new display switches for the matter, matter description, property address, settlement time, and showing the deposit in the seller column. Save your choices as your own default or as the firm default. We have also fixed an issue where clicking into an arrears field and leaving it blank added an empty payment row that stopped the statement saving.
🔑 Signing in and passwords Improved
The login page now explains clearly when an account is locked, how long until it unlocks, and that an administrator at your firm can unlock it sooner. You will see a warning when you have two tries left. Forgot password now clears a lockout caused by wrong passwords, so you can get yourself back in. We have also fixed an issue where people using two-factor sign-in could be locked out after only one or two wrong tries, because earlier typos were not being cleared after a successful login.
Email codes for two-factor sign-in are being retired. Two-factor codes sent by email will shortly be removed, and anyone using them will need to switch to an authenticator app. We will be contacting affected users directly with what to do.
📁 Shared folders are protected Improved
Folders shared across every file, such as Searches, can no longer be deleted from inside a single file. When an administrator deletes a shared folder, Law App shows exactly what will be affected and asks them to type the folder name to confirm. InfoTrack search folders can never be deleted. Folder setup under Admin > Folders is now one page with Document Folders, File Type Folders and File Specific Folders.
🧾 Trust and accounting
- Default tax codes. Cost Types and GL accounts can now have a default tax code, which fills in automatically on General Invoices, Payments and Receipts. You can still change it by hand.
- BPAY details. Trust payments and requisitions now include BPAY details.
- Expanded audit log. The audit log now records changes across far more areas of Law App, so it is easier to see who changed what and when.
🖥️ Everyday usability
- Outlook add-in. A clear blue Save Email button now stays in view as you scroll, and the tabs are now called Email and Time.
- Voice input for timesheet notes. Click into a timesheet note and press the record icon to dictate it.
- Custom fields in templates. Each field now keeps a permanent merge number, and removed fields are archived and can be restored.
- InfoTrack VOI. Results now arrive with 100 identity points and a two-year expiry.
- Email from template no longer fails when a firm has deleted a default folder.
- Create new version now works first time on migrated documents and merged PDFs.
🚀 New this month, in Beta
⏱️ Auto Time Beta
Auto Time will be released later this week. Auto Time records the time you spend working in Law App, against the matter you are in, so you can turn it into timesheets without reconstructing your day. Time with no matter open is kept as unassigned time, with the pages where it was spent, and that detail carries across when you assign it to a matter. Add a private note to an unassigned block to remind yourself what it was; the note does not become part of the timesheet description. Your firm sets whether time is recorded when no matter is open, and each person can change this for themselves.
📧 Unsaved Emails Beta
A new view under Documents matches your unsaved emails to files by file code, email thread or contact, and lets you save them to one file and folder in bulk. It uses your firm’s Law App connection instead of a Microsoft sign-in, and saving the same email twice no longer creates a second copy.
🔭 Coming soon
Overdue Reminder Notices. Law App will find overdue invoices, draft a reminder email in your firm’s name with a statement of account attached, and keep a record of exactly what was sent. Reminders come in tiers (30, 60 and 90 days by default) that you can rename and adjust, with editable email templates, a billing email on each file, and a daily review queue so someone checks each reminder before it goes. Firms connected to Microsoft 365 can also choose automatic sending from their own mailbox. Built-in safeguards mean the balance is re-checked at the moment of sending, and no interest, fees or write-offs are ever applied.
Microsoft 365 firm connection. Your firm’s Microsoft 365 administrator will be able to grant Law App access once. After that, Law App stays connected and staff will not need to sign in to Outlook separately inside Law App. It will also let Overdue Reminder Notices send automatically from your own mailbox. Your IT administrator will need to set it up, and we will provide a step-by-step guide.
Invoice layout options. Instead of choosing between many invoice layouts, you will choose what to include or exclude and set your own defaults.
Outlook appointment integration. Appointments on the file that sync with your Outlook calendars.
Connect your own AI. Connect your firm’s own Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot to Law App. More details when it is released.
AI file overview. An AI tab on each file summarising its documents.
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