FAQ & Troubleshooting
Straight answers — including the limitations the firm should know about.
Conflict checking
Does a clean conflict search mean there is no conflict?
No. The search covers only names the firm has recorded (parties, aliases, past intake parties). It cannot know about relationships never encoded, corporate parents/subsidiaries, or beneficial owners. It is a search assist that documents diligence — the lawyer's judgment, recorded as the disposition with a written rationale, is the actual clearance. This is by design and stated honestly.
What name variants does the search catch?
Exact and partial matches on the normalized name (case, punctuation, accents and corporate suffixes like Inc./Corp./OPC are neutralized), token-level matches (“Gerardo Yap” finds “Gerardo M. Yap”), and phonetic matches (“Lym” finds “Lim”). Aliases (AKA/maiden/trade names/known misspellings) recorded on a party are searched too — record them diligently; the corpus is only as good as its entries.
Why can't I edit or delete a disposition?
Conflict evidence is insert-only, deliberately: searches, hits and decisions are the firm's professional- responsibility record. To change a decision, record a NEW disposition — the latest one governs.
Why does a declined intake still appear in search results?
Because that is precisely when it matters: a prospective client you declined (or who withdrew) may later appear adverse. Their intake party rows stay in the corpus permanently.
Confidentiality & visibility
Who can see a restricted matter?
Its creator, its lead attorney, everyone on its Team tab, and holders of
law_office_restricted_view. Everyone else does not see it anywhere — lists, calendar,
register, reports, dashboard, widgets, or the APIs. Machine (integration API) clients never see
restricted matters at all.
Are restricted views tracked?
Yes — every permitted view of a restricted matter or a confidential intake writes an insert-only access log row, and report exports that include restricted rows are logged as exports.
I'm a reports user — why don't my totals match a partner's?
Reports are visibility-scoped per viewer: your numbers exclude restricted matters you cannot see. That is intentional; the report page says so in its scope note.
Deadlines
Why can't I edit a verified deadline?
Verified deadlines are immutable so the firm can trust them. Create the corrected deadline, then use Supersede on the old one — the old row keeps a pointer to its replacement, preserving the history.
Why won't the matter close?
It still has open (draft or verified) deadlines. Complete, cancel, or supersede each one first — this is the guard against closing a case with a live court deadline.
Why did nobody get a reminder?
- Only verified deadlines are reminded (drafts get the separate stuck-in-queue nag).
- The reminder goes to the deadline's assignee, falling back to the matter's lead — make sure one is set.
- Check the ladder setting and that the
law_office_deadline_sweepcron is running (php erpat cron:list); reminders fire once per rung, so a rung already sent will not repeat. - The recipient's own notification preferences control bell vs email delivery.
Deadline dates aren't computed from the Rules of Court?
Correct — in this version dates are encoded by people and verified by a lawyer against the source. The rule-basis field documents the legal basis; automatic period computation is a possible future phase.
Documents & tasks
Where do uploaded files physically go?
Through ERPat's standard storage pipeline: local disk under the module's folder, or S3 (with signed download URLs) when the instance has S3 enabled. Every file is also registered in the central file registry. Demo-seeded document rows are metadata-only, so downloading them is expected to fail.
Why isn't my document in the verify dialog's source dropdown?
Only matter documents flagged “Source document” appear there — intake documents and unflagged uploads do not. Edit is not available on documents; delete and re-upload with the flag ticked.
Common admin fixes
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| Law Office missing from the menu | Module toggle off, or the user lacks law_office. Check Manage Modules + the Roles editor. |
| “That status change is not allowed…” | You are skipping a workflow step (e.g. accepting from Draft). See the state maps in Reference. |
| “This intake cannot be accepted…” | The latest conflict disposition is not Cleared / Cleared with Waiver — run/decide the conflict check first. |
| Tables missing / SQL errors on a tenant | php erpat migrate:modules was not run for that tenant. |
| Verify button absent | The viewer lacks law_office_deadlines_verify, or the row is not a draft. |
| Demo data lingering | php erpat db:seed LawOfficeDemo --remove (repeatable, soft-delete). |
Glossary
| Intake | A prospective engagement under confidential evaluation — not yet a matter. |
| Disposition | The lawyer's recorded conflict decision (cleared / cleared with waiver / declined / escalated) with rationale. |
| Matter | An accepted engagement/case — the unit everything else hangs off. |
| Restricted matter | A matter visible only to its team (plus restricted-view holders), enforced in the query layer. |
| Draft vs verified deadline | Advisory entry vs lawyer-confirmed, immutable, reminded, close-blocking obligation. |
| Supersede | The only way to “change” a verified deadline: a replacement row, chained to the original. |