Contact Management in Law Ruler Follow

Introduction to Contact Management in Law Ruler

Law Ruler is a fully-loaded legal CRM that comes with comprehensive contact management features. 
📇 "Contacts" in Law Ruler are all the people or businesses that you work with at your practice - including clients, law firms, spouses, insurance companies, experts, witnesses, judges, etc.

Contacts are the building block of every lead or case inside of Law Ruler.  

Managing Your Contacts

To get started, click on the "Contacts" option in the left menu in your Law Ruler system.  This will bring you to the contact management screen where you may add, edit, and delete contacts.  

⚠️ You may not delete a Contact that is currently in use on a lead or case or you will receive a friendly warning from the system and it will not be deleted.  To find out which records that the Contact is used on, use the Global Search in the Search field in the upper margin of your Law Ruler system.

 

Adding New Contacts

🆕 Need to add a New Contact?

Once you are in the Contacts screen, you are able to create a new Contact by pressing the
"New Contact" button in the top-right corner.  You could also import a spreadsheet of Contacts in the Import Wizard. 

Adding Contacts will trigger the duplicate checking rules which differ if it is an individual/personal or business contact. 

When creating a New Contact directly in Law Ruler and not via import, you must determine if this is an individual/personal or business contact. Each contact allows multiple phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses. 

• 🧍 Individual/Personal Contacts require a First or Last Name, and either Primary Phone or Email.
  • The "Primary Phone Number" AKA Mobile/Cell Number is a primary field in Law Ruler and required for all individual contacts since phone numbers are used for duplicate checking and text messaging. 
  • Also, the "Primary E-Mail" field is also recommended since it may be used for duplicate checking and email communications, but it is not required if you have the "Primary Phone Number" in the Contact. You must have one or the other to create an individual/personal Contact.
    
    
• 🏛️ Business Contacts require the Company Name but do not require a First or Last Name, or Primary Phone or Email.  
  
  
• "Contact Type" is a required field for each Contact.  This will default to "Lead" when creating a new lead/intake, so if you want to change it, then please do so.  For example, you would select the Contact Type of "Adjuster" for an insurance adjuster.

Using Contacts in Leads, Intakes, and Cases

Before a lead or case may be created, you must select a "Primary Contact" to start a new record. 

• The Contact Type is different than the "Case Role" so do not confuse the two.  A Contact Type is the job title or purpose of this Contact and not specific to a single lead or case. 
• A "Case Role" is the role that a particular Contact plays in a single lead/case in Law Ruler.  For example, you could potentially reuse the same Contact as a Case Role of "Spouse" in a case for their partner if they are a witness, yet they may be the "Primary Contact" case role for their own case.

After selecting the "Primary Contact" you will see them listed at the top of the screen inside of each lead/case in Law Ruler as shown below:

⚠️ You may edit or replace the contact at any time by pressing the green pencil icon to open up the Edit Contact screen.  Of note, if you use the same Contact on multiple leads/cases, be mindful that any edits will affect every lead/case where the same Contact is used because they are based on the same Contact.

🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏽 Additional parties? You may add "Additional Contacts" to each lead/case for additional parties. 

To add an "Additional Contact" to a lead or case, you press the "Add Contact" button in the "Additional Contacts" tab. 

🔧 You must also select the "Case Role" for each additional Contact added to each lead/case.  As a reminder, a "Case Role" is the role that a particular Contact plays in one particular lead/case in Law Ruler, e.g. witness, defendant, spouse, etc.  The "Case Role" of a Contact could vary across multiple cases.

The "Case Role" of each "Additional Contact" may be changed at any time by selecting from the dropdown.  You may also compose an email by clicking on the e-mail icon on the right side.

How to Customize Case Roles and Contact Types

Law Ruler comes pre-built with many case roles and contact types to choose from. However, if you ever need to add, remove, or edit your case roles and contact types, Law Ruler offers you that flexibility. 

First navigate to Setup using the blue menu on the left hand side:

Then, navigate to System Categories & Key Dates:

From this page you can navigate to either the Case Roles or Contact Types page to make your necessary customizations:

 

Duplicate/Conflict Checking in Law Ruler and Related Contacts

☑️ What are the Duplicate Checking Rules in Law Ruler?

🧍 For Individual/Personal Contacts, Law Ruler triggers a duplicate contact warning for these conditions:

• The Contact First + Last Name and Primary Email match another Contact in the system
• The Contact First + Last Name and Primary Phone Number (Cell/Mobile)
• Primary Phone Only (Cell/Mobile)

🏛️ For Business Contacts, Law Ruler triggers a duplicate contact warning for these conditions:

• The Company Name matches another Business Contact in the system 

🔁 Where are Potential Duplicates/Conflicts Displayed in a Lead/Case?

"Related Contacts" are any potential duplicates or conflicts where the same Contact in the current lead/case was added as the Primary Contact in another lead/case, e.g. which other records do the same Contact have involvement?

If you see any results in the "Related" tab, then you should click on the blue link on each result and verify that there is not a duplicate or conflict before proceeding. 

Importing Contacts into Law Ruler

Importing your Contacts is the quickest way to fill your Law Ruler database with your Rolodex of Contacts.  This may be done by your firm's staff or it could be done for you as part of a data migration scope of work by a Law Ruler project manager. 

📁 If you would like to import your own Contacts, then visit the Law Ruler Import Wizard.

Exporting Contacts out of Law Ruler

Exporting your Contacts is a great way to edit them in bulk at your firm.  This is a great feature for database maintenance.  You are able to export your entire or partial database of Contacts, make changes on your side in Excel, and then import them back into Law Ruler using the Import Wizard.

Law Ruler gives you 2 different export options:

• Export Contacts
• Export Related Contacts

⏏️ To Export Contacts, click the "Export Contacts" button inside of the Contacts screen as shown below:

This will export a list of all contacts, based on any search of filtering criteria you may have applied. 

 

⏏️ To Export Related Contacts, click "Export Related Contacts" inside of the Contacts screen.

This option will export a list of all contacts as well as have additional information regarding which records, if any, those contacts are referenced on. This report will include 3 new columns for lead ID, case ID, and case name. 

 

How Do I Restrict Who Can Export My Contacts?

By default, all users are given permission to export all contacts. If you wish to disable this permission for specific users, navigate to Setup -> Manage Users and Groups.

Scroll down until you see the User Management section.

Deselect the permission titled "Export All Contacts" for your specific users. 

To learn more about how to manage your users, click here.

 

Support/Assistance

If you need further assistance, then please contact Law Ruler Support to assist you further. 

🤗 Thank you very much for choosing Law Ruler!