Firm Administrator

Typical role assignment: staff, administrator

The firm administrator is responsible for setting up and maintaining ProGuard Legal for the firm. You are not necessarily a lawyer — in many firms this is the office manager, IT lead or chief of staff.

The administrator role grants full control over users, roles, permissions, and firm-wide configuration. It does not automatically grant access to matters or HR data — assign yourself those roles explicitly if you also need to work in those modules.

Initial setup checklist

When the firm is first provisioned, work through these in order:

1. Firm identity

Admin → Settings

  • Upload the firm logo (shown in the sidebar and on the login page)
  • Set the firm name
  • Review system settings

2. Organisation structure

  • Admin → Departments — create Litigation, Corporate, HR, Finance, etc.
  • Admin → Positions — create Partner, Senior Associate, Associate, Clerk, etc.

3. Reference data

  • Admin → Practice Areas — the legal domains your firm works in
  • Admin → Sectors — client industries
  • Admin → Courts — the courts you appear in
  • Admin → Judges — judges by court

4. Matter configuration

  • Admin → Matter Types — configure the types of matter your firm handles
  • Admin → Custom Fields — add firm-specific fields to matters or clients
  • Admin → Deadline Rules — set up automated deadline calculation

5. Financial configuration

  • Admin → Currencies — enable the currencies you bill in and set exchange rates
  • Billing → Expense Categories — the categories you'll log disbursements under

6. HR policies

  • HR → Leave Policies — set up leave types and rules
  • HR → Public Holidays — the holidays your firm observes
  • HR → Review Periods, Competence Categories, Competences, Performance Targets, Appraisal Templates — appraisal framework

7. Document templates

Admin → Document Templates — upload reusable letter and pleading templates with merge fields so the team can generate documents in a click.

8. Workflow rules

Admin → Workflow Rules — automate reactions to events. For example, automatically create a task when a matter is opened, or notify a partner when an invoice crosses a threshold.

9. Users

Admin → Users — invite people. For each user:

  • Enter their details
  • Assign department and position
  • Assign roles carefully (see Roles model)
  • Send the invite email

Ongoing responsibilities

User management

  • Add, edit, suspend and remove users
  • Change role assignments when people move roles
  • Resend invites when people lose their email
  • Review the user list regularly — inactive accounts should be disabled

Role and permission review

Admin → Roles — review the seeded roles and see exactly what each one grants. The Permission matrix is a quick summary.

Audit logs

Admin → Audit Logs — review sensitive actions. Check this at least weekly:

  • User account changes
  • Role assignment changes
  • Failed login attempts (if logged)
  • Deletions of matters, invoices, or clients

System settings

Admin → Settings — firm-wide preferences, defaults, and integrations.

Things to be careful about

  • Don't give everyone *_manager. Managers can delete records. Most users should be workers or supervisors.
  • Legal title ≠ permission. Assigning someone the partner role does nothing by itself; you must also give them a matter_* role. See Roles model.
  • Deleting users. Prefer suspending to deleting — it preserves the audit trail. Delete only when you're certain.
  • Workflow rules — test rules carefully. A badly-configured rule can create a lot of noise.

Your key modules