Archiving

You can digitally archive matters, clients, and contacts in Legalsense. Archiving changes the record's status to archived, so it no longer appears when you select a matter, client, or contact. Legalsense still retains all the underlying data, and an archived matter still appears in reports if it has results.

Matter archiving

Archive matters from the matter overview at Matters → Matters.

Archive a single matter

Each row in the matter overview has an archive icon at the end. Click this icon to open a window where you can enter an archive number and archive notes, and edit the archive date.

Archive icon at the end of a row in the matter overview.

Archive matter window, showing fields for the archive number, archive notes, and archive date.

You can also archive a matter from its detail page, via the Extra menu.

Archive multiple matters

To archive several matters at once, select their checkboxes in the matter overview and click Archive.

Matter overview with several matters selected and the Archive button visible.

Notifications

Legalsense only lets you archive a matter if it has no billable time, disbursements, or unsettled advances, and no (partially) outstanding invoices. If a matter can't be archived, Legalsense tells you the reason.

Notification explaining why a matter can't be archived.

Note: If you try to archive a Legal Aid matter without a client contribution invoice or a pro forma invoice to the Raad voor Rechtsbijstand (RvR), Legalsense shows a warning. You can only archive the matter in this case by selecting Archive anyway.

Archive information

When you archive a single matter, Legalsense asks for an archive number and archive notes. Use the archive number, for example, to record which number the paper matter has at an external archive service, or which archive box it's stored in. You can change this field later by editing the archived matter.

By default, the archive date is the moment you archive the matter, but you can change this during archiving or afterward by editing the archived matter. Legalsense shows this date for an archived matter both in the matters archive and on the matter page.

Matters archive

To retrieve archived matters from the matter overview, select Archived instead of Active in the Status field.

Matter overview with the Status dropdown open, showing the Archived option.

The matters archive lists all archived matters. Click the arrow next to a matter to unarchive (activate) it.

Green unarchive arrow next to a matter in the matters archive.

To unarchive multiple matters at once, select them and click Unarchive.

Matters archive with several matters selected and the Unarchive button visible.

When you activate a matter, choose whether to keep or remove its archive number.

Dialog asking whether to keep or remove the archive number when unarchiving a matter.

Note: When you activate a matter, Legalsense removes its archive date.

Clients and contacts

You can also archive clients and contacts in Legalsense. This is especially useful once there's no more work to do for a client and all its matters can be archived, or are already archived. Archiving a client also archives all its underlying matters, but this is only possible if there's nothing left open on those matters. The same applies to archiving a contact, whether an organization or a natural person. You can only archive one client or contact at a time.