Organising legal consultations and turning them into cases and fee agreements

The consultation is the office’s front door: why record them all?

Because many cases and services begin with a consultation: a short call, a meeting at the office or a WhatsApp message. If it is not recorded, the origin of the relationship is lost with it: who asked, when, about what, and what they were told. Recording serves three parties at once: the consultant, who can go back to their earlier opinion when the enquirer returns; management, which learns the volume of advisory work and its fees; and the enquirers themselves, who find that the office remembers their story without their having to tell it again. These are signs that the consultations in your office need organising:

• Paid consultations where nobody knows whether the fee was collected.
• An enquirer calls a second time and nobody in the office knows what they were told the first time.
• A consultant carries a heavy load without it showing in any figure.
• A serious enquirer whom nobody followed up after the consultation, and who never came back.

The consultations most often lost are phone ones, because they seem too short to be worth recording. Make it the rule in your office that a consultation is opened during the call, not after it: the name, phone number, category and the channel “Phone” in under a minute, then the consultant completes the question, the opinion and the length of the call once it is over. What is not recorded at the time is forgotten before the end of the day, especially on a day packed with hearings.

What should you record for a consultation?

In Murafe, a consultation is recorded from “Legal consultations” with the “New consultation” button, or from the quick-add “New” button by choosing “Legal consultation”. The enquirer does not have to be a client: choose the client if they are registered, or enter the enquirer’s name and phone number. Then fill in the details you will need later for follow-up and statistics; each has a reason that justifies the minute it takes:

Write the legal opinion for a reader who does not know the story: a colleague who takes over the enquirer a year later, or you yourself a hundred consultations later. A summary of the facts as the enquirer presented them is enough, with the opinion they were given and its limits, and any documents they were asked for. This does not take pages: one clear paragraph is more useful than a terse note that only its writer understands. The record then becomes a reference you can rely on, not just proof that the consultation took place.

A category list that works for statistics

The category is the field that is usually neglected and then missed at the first report. If every consultant categorises in their own way, the statistics fill up with near-identical items that answer nothing. That is why the category is chosen from a single list among the lookup lists in the settings, which anyone with the permission can add to and reorder. The office needs to decide its contents carefully before consultations pile up, with the help of a few simple rules:

• A short list that reflects what your office actually receives, with a general item for whatever fits nowhere else.
• One category per consultation, by its main subject, not by whatever the enquirer mentioned first.
• Review the list every few months: a general item that keeps growing is a sign of a category missing from the list.
• Deactivate a category that is no longer used rather than leaving it there to confuse the choice.

The legal consultation form: the signed paper

Some offices need a signed paper alongside the electronic record, especially for paid in-person consultations. That is why “Forms and printouts” in Murafe includes a legal consultation form, cleanly designed and carrying your office’s identity. It opens from the forms list, or from the consultation’s own page, which fills in its details automatically, and a preview of the form as it will be printed appears beside the fields and updates with every change. After that:

• Each form has a serial number starting with the Arabic prefix “س/”, so it can be looked up by its number.
• The scanned signed copy is attached on the form’s page, so it stays with its record.
• A blank form for filling in by hand is printed from the “Blank form” button when needed.
• The form has its own permissions — view, fill in, edit, delete and print — and every print of it leaves a trace in the audit log.

Not every consultation needs a form. Give the office a written rule that everyone knows and that reception applies without asking, such as: a signed form for every paid in-person consultation or for every enquirer who leaves documents, and a record in the system alone for short phone consultations. A clear rule stops the form from becoming a burden the team skips, or a paper forgotten on the very day it is needed.

Follow-up: a consultation does not end when the call does

Many consultations end with a promise: a document the office is waiting for, a written opinion to be sent, or a second appointment. Set a follow-up date in the consultation if needed, preferably before the enquirer leaves rather than a day or two later, and write down clearly in the legal opinion what was agreed, so that any colleague who opens the record after you understands it. And when the enquirer comes back, the consultant does not need to ask for their story again, because Murafe’s tools put their earlier consultations in front of them:

• The client’s file shows their consultations alongside their cases, services, fee agreements, powers of attorney, documents and balance.
• Global search, opened with the “/” key, includes consultations in its results, with each result’s type shown beside it.
• The “New” button adds a task for whoever will take the next step, if the follow-up is work assigned to a colleague.
• A message to the client from “Messages and notifications”, by WhatsApp or email, with a ready-made template or free text.

From consultation to a case or service under a fee agreement

When an enquirer decides to retain the office, the right conversion goes through the client’s file, not through copying the details onto a new sheet. The consultation becomes the first line of a long relationship: its trace must stay visible in the client’s file so the client is not asked again for what they already told you, and the financial side must rest on a clear agreement from day one. The steps in Murafe:

1. If the enquirer is not yet a client, register them with “New client” as an individual, a company or a government body; the system will warn you if they are already registered under the same ID card number or phone number.
2. Edit the consultation and choose the registered client in place of the enquirer’s name, so that it appears in their file.
3. From the client’s file, open the new case or legal service directly, and set the assignee and the case team.
4. Write the fee agreement in “Fee agreements”: the total fee split into instalments with their due dates, linked to the case or service it covers.
5. Print it with the wording your office has adopted in the “Fee agreement template”, and use the “Write scope from the case” button to have the scope of work written from the case details.

A consultation that does not turn into a file does not lose its value: it stays in the client’s file as a reference if they come back months later, and a fee not covered by an agreement does not drop out of the accounts, since it appears in the client’s statement of account and debts like any other amount due. So the office does not lose what it is owed for a consultation just because it never became a case.

Consultation figures every month

What is not measured is not managed, and consultations are among the easiest things to measure if they are recorded well. In “Statistics and reports”, the number of consultations and their fees are counted by month, category and consultant for any period you choose: this month, this quarter, this year, last year or a custom period. The report can be printed or saved as a PDF for the partners’ meeting, or exported as a file that opens in Excel. Put four questions to these figures every month:

• Which categories are growing? Steady growth in one category may mean you need a consultant dedicated to it.
• How is the work shared among the consultants? A large gap in numbers or fees deserves a discussion.
• How many consultations were paid? Comparing the number with the fees reveals how much work is done for free.
• How many consultations turned into work? Compare the people who asked with the cases and services opened for them later.

Every consultation recorded today is a potential file tomorrow, and a truer figure in the end-of-month report.