Powers of attorney can be tracked without surprises when each one is recorded in its client’s file with its number, type, expiry date and the lawyers it appoints, and the office’s team is alerted before it expires, as far in advance as the office chooses. A delegation letter becomes faster and more accurate when it is issued from the case file itself, so that the court, the next hearing, the parties and the valid power of attorney number flow into it instead of being copied by hand.
8-minute readLast updated: The Murafe team
Key takeaways
Record every power of attorney in its client’s file — number, type, issue and expiry dates, issuing authority and attorneys — and attach a copy to the documents.
In the settings, choose an alert period before powers of attorney expire that gives your office enough time to arrange renewal with the client.
Issue the delegation letter from the case file so that it fills itself in, then complete the floor, the roll number and the requests, and choose the two lawyers.
Permission to print delegation letters is separate from permission to issue them, and every print is recorded in the audit log.
A short weekly review of the agenda and the hearing roll prevents urgent calls on the last day.
Where does the surprise of an expired power of attorney come from?
The surprise usually comes from one place: the expiry date is written on a piece of paper nobody looks at. The power of attorney is copied when it arrives and kept in the client’s file or in the secretaries’ drawer, and only the person who received it remembers when it expires. Then a lawyer needs the power of attorney number for tomorrow’s hearing and discovers that it expired weeks ago, and that the client is abroad. The administrative remedy is clear: one register of powers of attorney linked to the clients’ files, an alert well ahead of the expiry date, and a delegation letter that takes the valid power of attorney number from the system, not from memory. These are signs that your office needs this arrangement:
The power of attorney number is requested from a colleague by phone before almost every hearing.
Nobody can quickly answer the question: which powers of attorney expire this month?
Delegation letters are written by hand, so mistakes in the case number and the circuit’s name keep recurring.
The copy of the power of attorney is kept on one employee’s computer or in their email.
What should you record for each power of attorney?
Start with a complete register before you think about alerts, because an alert only works on correct data. On the “Powers of attorney” page in Murafe, a client’s power of attorney is recorded with specific details, and it then appears in the client’s file alongside their cases, fee agreements and documents, where a lawyer usually looks for it. Each of these details has a practical use in day-to-day follow-up, not just in archiving:
Power of attorney number: the detail asked for more than any other, and the one written on the delegation letter.
Type of power of attorney: reminds the lawyer to check its wording before relying on it for a new piece of work.
Issue date and expiry date: the expiry date drives the alert, so enter it exactly as written on the power of attorney.
Issuing authority: useful when requesting a copy of the power of attorney or arranging its renewal.
Attorneys: the lawyers named in the power of attorney, so that whoever organises attendance at hearings knows them without going back to the paper.
If your office is starting the register from scratch, begin with the valid powers of attorney before the expired ones: gather the copies from clients’ files and from the team’s email, record each one with its expiry date and attach its copy at the same time. That way the alerts work from the first week; then complete the older ones at your own pace if you want to keep a full history of each client’s powers of attorney.
Alerts before expiry: how many days are enough?
No single period suits every office; what matters is that it is chosen deliberately, not left to chance. Murafe alerts the office’s team before a power of attorney expires by the period set in Settings → “Email, WhatsApp and alerts”, under “Automatic reminders and alerts”, and the expiry date also appears in the agenda alongside hearings and other dates. Work the period out from how your office operates: how long does it usually take to contact the client, agree an appointment and receive the new power of attorney? If many of your clients are companies or travel often outside Qatar, give yourself a wider margin. When the alert arrives, here is a practical order for dealing with it:
Open the client’s file and look at their active cases and services whose work depends on this power of attorney.
Contact the client to arrange renewal; you can message them by email or WhatsApp from “Messages and notifications”.
When the new power of attorney arrives, record it with its new number and dates, and attach its copy.
Check any delegation letter already issued for an upcoming hearing; letters issued from the case file after the new power of attorney is recorded take the valid number automatically.
Linking the power of attorney to the client and the case
A power of attorney is recorded against the client, not the case, and from the client’s file it reaches all of their cases. So when a delegation letter is issued from a case file, the system fetches the valid power of attorney number of that case’s client without any searching. This matches how things work in practice: one power of attorney may serve several cases for the same client, and renewing it should carry through to all of them in one step. That is why an accurate client file is a precondition for accurate powers of attorney: a client recorded twice means a power of attorney that may be looked for in the wrong file. Three situations deserve your attention:
Several clients on one file, such as heirs, partners or one power of attorney in several names: add each client to the case file with “Add client”, so that each has their own file and separate account under the same case.
A duplicate client: if the “Duplicate files” screen shows a client recorded twice, merge the two records, and the powers of attorney, cases, fee agreements and documents move to the record you keep.
A new client: if their ID card number or phone number matches a registered client, the system warns you, so duplication stops before it starts.
The everyday benefit of this link shows before any call to the client: the lawyer opens the client’s file and sees their powers of attorney with their numbers and expiry dates, alongside their cases, services, consultations, fee agreements and balance. They do not need to ask the secretaries for the power of attorney number, nor rely on an old copy kept in another file when the power of attorney may since have been renewed, and they know before calling whether they need to ask the client to renew it.
The delegation letter: what fills itself in and what you complete
A delegation letter (سند إنابة) is a short document, but a single mistake in it can throw the colleague attending the hearing: an incomplete case number, the wrong courtroom, or an opponent’s name with one letter wrong. That is why in Murafe it is issued from the case file itself, so the case details pass straight into the letter and you are left with only what the system cannot know without you. It can also be issued from the “Delegation letters” page or from the “New” button at the top of the screen. The steps for issuing it from the case file:
Open the case file and choose “Issue delegation letter” from the More menu.
Check the details carried over from the file, especially the date of the next hearing and the power of attorney number.
Complete the floor, the roll number and the requests, then choose the delegating lawyer and the delegated lawyer.
Save the letter and print it on the office’s form; the table below shows where each of its details comes from.
Detail in the letter
Where it comes from
Court, circuit and courtroom
The case file, automatically
Date and time of the next hearing
The case’s hearings, automatically
Case number, parties, their capacities and the subject
The case file, automatically
Decision of the previous hearing
Recorded hearing decisions, automatically
The client’s valid power of attorney number
The powers of attorney register, automatically
Floor, roll number and requests
Completed by whoever issues the letter
Delegating lawyer and delegated lawyer
Chosen when the letter is issued
Court’s decision
Left blank for the attending colleague to fill in
Printing on the office’s form
The delegation letter is printed on the office’s form from a preview page that shows it exactly as it will come out, on white paper even when the system’s interface is dark. If your office prints on paper with the logo already on it, switch off the “Print letterhead” option so the letterhead is not printed a second time on your stationery. The letter can be saved as a PDF from the print window and sent to the colleague who will attend, and a blank form can be printed to fill in by hand when needed. Printing has controls that keep a trace of it:
Printing delegation letters is a separate permission in the “Print” column of the “Roles and permissions” table, apart from the permission to issue a letter.
The “Audit log” keeps every print: who printed, when, and which letter by its number.
Issued letters are kept on the “Delegation letters” page, to refer back to whenever someone asks who delegated whom, and for which hearing.
A fifteen-minute weekly review
Alerts do half the job, and a regular habit does the other half. Give whoever handles powers of attorney in your office, whether a secretary or a lawyer, a fixed review at the start of every week of no more than fifteen minutes, to go through the agenda and the hearing roll and close whatever can be closed before it turns into an urgent call on the last day. Here are the suggested steps:
Go through the powers of attorney nearing expiry in the agenda, and make sure each one is being followed up with its client.
Open the hearing roll for each day of the week, and pick out the hearings that a lawyer other than the one responsible for the case will attend.
Issue the delegation letters for those hearings early, and complete the floor and roll number once they are known.
Check the alert at the top of the client list showing how many ID cards have expired or are about to, and add their holders to your call list.
Give the powers of attorney register one known owner: a responsibility shared by everyone is in practice taken up by no one. One employee, or two at most, can hold the permissions to add and edit powers of attorney, while the rest of the team can only view them. That way everyone knows who to send a new power of attorney to as soon as it arrives, and who to ask if an alert came and was not followed up.
Questions on this topic
No. Murafe keeps the power of attorney’s details and its copy, alerts you before it expires and puts its valid number on the delegation letter. Reviewing its wording, its scope and whether it is sufficient for a particular piece of work stays with the office’s lawyers: the system is an organising tool, not a legal opinion.
The alert reaches the office’s team ahead of the expiry date by the period set in the settings, and the expiry date appears in the agenda. Anyone who has turned on “Device notifications” from their menu receives the alert on their computer or phone even when the system is closed.
Because it is reserved for the attending colleague, who writes in it what the court decided at the hearing. Once they are back, the decision is recorded in the case’s hearings, so it appears on the next delegation letter under “Decision of the previous hearing”, and the next hearing is created automatically.
That depends on the permissions the office sets. Powers of attorney and delegation letters have view, add, edit and delete permissions for each role, delegation letters have a separate print permission, and a permission can be added for, or withheld from, a particular employee without changing their role.
