Your files, dates and fees go with you… even into the courtroom

Why does a solo lawyer need software to manage their office?

Because a solo lawyer does the work of three people alone: pleading, receiving clients and collecting fees. Every hour spent looking for a paper or checking an instalment is taken from studying the files. Law firm management software does not change the way you work; it brings it together in one place: the client and their file, the case and its litigation degrees, the hearing and its decision, the agreement and its instalments. Murafe runs in the browser on a computer and a phone, so you need no server in the office and no IT employee to look after one.

A single lawyer’s hearings in Qatar are spread across different courts, circuits, prosecution offices and committees, so the names of Qatar’s judicial bodies come ready in the system, from the Court of First Instance – Civil Circuits to the Court of Cassation and the Labour Disputes Settlement Committee. Each litigation degree has its own file linked to the one before it: if you appeal a judgment, you open the appeal file from the case file itself, and the client, the opponents and the subject move into it without your retyping anything.

Your day between the courts: how does the system go with you from morning to evening?

Murafe installs on your phone as an app bearing your office’s logo, and once device notifications are on, alerts for hearings and appeal deadlines reach you even when the system is closed. In the morning the agenda shows your day’s hearings, and from the “Hearings” section you can print the day’s roll, sorted by court and time, if you want a paper copy. If you need a file while you are outside the courtroom, type the client’s name, the case number, their QID number or their phone number into the global search.

After the hearing you record the decision with a ready-made phrase or in your own words, and set the date of the next hearing and what it requires; the system creates it automatically. From the same screen you notify your client: in “WhatsApp link” mode the system opens WhatsApp on your phone with the message ready, and you review it and send it. When the judgment is issued you record its type and operative part, and Murafe proposes the last day to appeal from the periods set in Settings → Appeal periods. Reviewing and changing that date stays in your hands, because legal responsibility for deadlines lies with your office.

And because your phone goes everywhere with you, protecting sign-in is part of your daily work: turn on “Remember me on this device” on your personal phone only, and let the system sign you out automatically after the period of inactivity you set. Sign-in attempts are paused for a while after several wrong passwords in a row, passwords are stored with secure hashing, and your office’s data stays in a separate database that no other office shares. If you ever suspect that someone knows your password, change it at once from your personal menu.

Fees and clients: clarity that protects the relationship

When fees are written into an agreement and split into instalments with known dates, asking for them is less awkward. In Murafe the agreement is printed in your office’s own wording from the “Fee agreement template”, the scope of work is written from the case details with one button, and you then split the total into instalments with due dates. The “Contract instalments” page shows you those that are overdue and those due within 7 or 30 days, and the system reminds the client of an instalment that has fallen due, by email or WhatsApp, if you turn this on in the settings.

When the client pays, you issue the receipt voucher for cash, a cheque, a card or a bank transfer, and it prints on your letterhead with the amount written in words. A voucher is never deleted once issued; it is cancelled with the reason stated, so your accounts stay clear to you and to your client. If you allow it, the client sees in the client portal their total fees, what they have paid, what remains and the next instalment, and writes to you from the portal’s message box instead of calling you in the middle of a hearing.

If an assistant joins you later, you add an account for them with a role that suits them, for example registering clients and hearings without seeing the accounts. At first sign-in they replace the temporary password you gave them with their own, and their work stays recorded under their name, so you know who registered a file and who changed it. Murafe comes as one all-inclusive package with every feature and no limit on users or document storage, priced to the size and needs of your office, so you do not need to change systems as your practice grows.