Set up a group's templates and standard content

You look after a client's group or a practice team's. Every new matter in it starts with the same work: the client's group chart, the procedural timetable, the closing checklist, the same entity types and the same people. Set that up once on the group, and each lawyer who opens a matter there starts from the firm's best version instead of a blank page.

Two questions decide what goes on the group. What does every matter for this client or team start with? And is it a whole piece of work, or a building block that work is made from? A whole piece of work is a template; a building block is standard content.

Open the group's library

Only a Manager of the group can change its templates and building blocks. If the cards and lists in the library are greyed out, you are a Member: ask a Manager, or ask to be made one. See set up a group for a client.

1. Open the group and click Library at the top of its page.

   

2. Templates in the group's name shows a card for Structure templates, Timeline templates, Task board templates and Insight templates, each with how many the group holds.

   

Add the templates

3. Click the card for the kind of template, then Create new above the list. Build the template the way you would build the work in a matter, leaving out the facts of any one matter. Use names that describe the role, such as Target, BidCo or Claimant, so the next team knows what to replace.

   

   Already have a finished piece of work to start from? Each kind has its own guide:

   Template	How to build it
   A structure chart or step plan	Draw it in a matter and file it with Save as template: reuse a structure as a template
   A procedural or deal timetable	Steps set a number of days after a start date: lay out the procedural timetable from a template
   A deal checklist	Build the firm's deal checklist template
   A review grid	Reuse a review grid on the next deal

4. Keep a long list in order with folders: click the folder icon above the list (Create Folder), and use Move to Folder in a template's More menu. When a lawyer picks a template, the list shows the templates under their folder names.

5. To give another group the same template, choose Copy and move to in the template's More menu and pick the group under Groups. Only the groups whose templates you can change are listed. The template stays on this group as well.

Add the standard building blocks

6. Back in the library, Blocks in the group's name lists the building blocks the group's matters work with, with how many of each: Elements, Relationships, Attributes and Red flags for structure charts, People and Documents for timelines, and Scenarios and Outputs for automated analysis.

7. Click a kind to open its list and add or correct entries with Create new. For a client's group chart, start with the entity types, the ownership line and the attributes the team records: set up the group's elements and relationship types.

8. Below, AI Prompts holds the instructions the AI follows when it works on the group's matters. See set AI instructions for a practice group.

How it reaches the matters

Tips from practice

• One owner per template. When the precedent changes, the owner updates the template once. If each team fixes its own copy, nobody knows which one is current.
• Client-specific on the group, firm-wide in the library. The client's own entities and chart belong on the client's group. What every practice uses, such as the standard closing checklist, belongs in the Firm-wide Library, which your admins look after: see keep the firm's templates in shared libraries.
• Describe the template. A description tells colleagues when to use it; lawyers see it beside the template when they choose one.
• Prune once a year. The counts on the cards show where templates pile up. Delete what nobody uses, and keep one of any two near-copies.

The lawyers' side of this is in start from your firm's templates.