# How consultations work

A consultation moves from draft to approved, late, done or rejected; lawyers, deadlines and activities keep it moving, access levels and privacy decide who sees it, and it can start from a client request.

The consultations app records the firm's written legal opinions. It builds on the legal foundation: the clients, the lawyers and the client requests come from there.

## The life of a consultation {#lifecycle}

| State | Meaning | How it gets there |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Recorded, not yet accepted. | On creation, or **Reset to Draft** by a manager. |
| Approved | Accepted; the lawyers are drafting the answer. | **Actions** › **Approve**. |
| Late | Approved, and the deadline has passed. | On its own, checked every day; a later deadline returns it to approved. |
| Done | Answered and closed. | **Actions** › **Mark Done**, from approved or late. |
| Rejected | Not taken, with a reason. | **Actions** › **Reject** and a reason. |

The **Response** and **Advice** tabs exist from approval on: the question is written at the start, the answer once the firm takes the work.

## Lawyers and "My Consultations" {#lawyers-and-my-consultations}

A consultation has one or more lawyers from the lawyers directory. A lawyer linked to a user sees it under **My Consultations**, the filter the list opens on, and receives its activities. A lawyer without a user is recorded on the consultation but sees nothing and receives nothing.

## Access levels {#access-levels}

The level on **Consulting** in the **Legal Rights** section of a user decides what they can do: **Read-only** reads the consultations, **User: Own Documents** creates and handles the consultations of their own files, and **Manager: All Documents** handles every consultation, resets closed ones to draft and sees the **Configuration** menu of the app.

## Privacy and the client {#privacy-and-the-client}

On top of the levels, **Privacy Visibility** on each consultation narrows who sees it, from every internal user to its followers only. When it lets portal users in, the client follows the consultation automatically and sees it on the customer portal under **Consultations**, with its state and report.

## Billing {#billing}

Where accounting is installed, a consultation is billed from itself: **Create Invoice** prepares a draft invoice for the client with the amount you type and the product **Consulting Fees** (changeable in the settings). Its cards show a **$** badge: pale yellow without invoice, red while an invoice is unpaid, green once everything is paid. Closing a consultation that has no invoice asks whether to bill it first.

## From a client request {#from-a-client-request}

A question can reach the firm as a client request in the Requests app. Approving a request of type **Consulting** opens a new consultation filled from it, and the two stay linked: the request shows its consultations, the consultation shows the request in **Source**.

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- Source: https://jaah.app/docs/law-consulting/how-consultations-work
- Updated: 2026-10-14
- Version: Consultations 19.0.1.0.28