Your role
Partner
Your work as a partner at a law firm: what you see when you sign in, the decisions that wait for you, and what the role can do.
Kila describes the role: “Opens matters, sets rates, invoices, writes off and runs retainers; sees every matter but restricted ones; clears conflicts, agrees fees below the scale and approves payments out of client money.” Much of the firm’s work waits for a partner’s second pair of eyes, and Kila sends it to you.
When you sign in
Link to this section: When you sign inKila opens My dashboard. Across the top: Overdue tasks, Due today, To sign off, Deadlines to verify and Approvals waiting. Below, Sent up to you (“Late work on matters you supervise or are responsible for”), Work to sign off (“Done by others, waiting for your review”) and My tasks. The buttons at the top start the usual work: New task, Record time, Court diary, Documents, Respond to clients and Approvals.
Your menu has all of the firm’s work: My work, Practice, Practice areas, Fees and client money (Billing and Client money) and The firm (Firm insights, Compliance and Practice configuration).
Your work
Link to this section: Your work- Decide what waits for a partner in Approvals: Decide the firm’s approvals.
- Clear conflicts: Decide a conflict review.
- Open, hold and close matters: How a matter moves.
- Verify deadlines others set: Verify a deadline.
- Agree fees and approve fee notes: Agree the fees on a matter and Issue a fee note.
- Approve payments out of client money: Pay out of client money.
- Approve messages and review drafts: Send a message to a client and Draft a document from a template.
What you can do
Link to this section: What you can doEverything the role is allowed to do
- General
- View dashboard; Approve or reject requests
- Point of sale
- View sales
- Catalog
- View products and services
- Stock
- View stock
- Customers
- View customers; Create and edit customers
- Services
- View services and bookings; Manage services and resources; Book and manage appointments; Create job cards; Assign job cards; Work on assigned job cards; Quality-check and verify finished job cards (any job); Insurance repairs: claims, assessments, authority to repair and release letters; Issue parts to any job card and order parts for jobs
- Practice
- See every matter, not only those on their team (restricted matters stay with their team); Keep the court diary and deadlines for every advocate and matter; Waive a conflict found before instructions are taken; Agree a fee below the scale (Remuneration Order); Record and verify client identification (KYC) and risk ratings; Approve draft bills (write-downs and write-ups) before they are invoiced; Keep the registry: documents received and dispatched, and where the files are
- Legal practice
- Approve a matter’s opening, stage changes, holds, closing and reopening; Hand matters and work over from one person to another; Leads, consultations and intake forms; Review conflict search results: clear, escalate or decline (waiving stays with matters.conflict.waive); Verify calculated deadlines as a second person; Design and publish workflow templates; Authorise an exception to a workflow step; Approve documents in review; Share documents outside the firm and publish them to the client portal; Place and release legal holds and keep retention schedules; Curate the knowledge library, precedents and document templates; Approve messages to clients before they are sent; Approve timesheets; Fee agreements, the billing workbench, disbursements and collections; Give clients and their representatives portal access and manage what they see; The compliance centre: policies, rules, privacy requests, incidents and practising records; The audit trail explorer; Firm-wide management dashboards and reports; Practice configuration: practice areas, matter types and fields, numbering, templates and rules; Ethical walls, emergency (break-glass) access and segregation of duties; Ask for emergency access to a matter (time-limited, reviewed independently); Use the AI assistant on matters they can open; Turn AI on or off, set its policies and review its logs; Sign off legal opinions, and contracts at or above the firm’s sign-off value, before they go out; Approve professional undertakings the firm gives (never one they give themselves)
- Credit
- View credit and agreements; Record repayments
- Finance
- View the client account: balances held per client and matter, and the client ledger; Receive client money, pay out of it and transfer fees to office against a fee note; Approve payments out of client money and sign off client account reconciliations; Submit expenses; Approve and pay expenses
- Reports
- View reports
- Staff
- View staff records, attendance and leave; Record attendance for others and approve manual clock-ins; Record and approve leave
- Branch operations
- View checklists, audits, issues and the branch scorecard; Complete opening, closing and log checklists and report issues; Assign, date, verify and cancel branch issues
- Salon and venues
- Send messages to client segments (lapsed, birthdays, a service or stylist); Events and venue hire: quotes, deposits, confirmations and cancellations
Your limits
Link to this section: Your limits| Approval limit | Up to |
|---|---|
| Discounts | 15% |
| Expenses | KES 100,000.00 |
Good to know
You never decide what you asked for yourself: Kila says “You raised this request. Someone else must decide it.” A payment out of client money above the firm’s second limit (KES 1,000,000 at Wanjiru & Otieno Advocates) needs two partners.
- Advocate and Pupil: the people whose work you sign off.
- Legal practice: how Kila works for a law firm.