With Multi-Client Matters (MCM), firms on Essentials, Advanced, and Expand plans can now add multiple clients to a single matter. This feature eliminates the need for manual workarounds—like duplicate matters or combined contact names—allowing you to manage complex cases with greater accuracy and professionalism.
Add multiple clients to matters
You can add up to 11 clients to a matter when creating or editing a matter in Clio Manage. Adding multiple clients to your matter allows you to accurately manage the contacts on a matter who are employing your firm, whereas you can then use related contacts exclusively for entities connected to the matter but not represented by your firm (e.g., opposing counsel, witnesses, etc.).
When adding multiple clients to a matter, you can select which client to make the “default client”. Certain functionality in Clio Manage applies to this single default client (e.g., some reports apply to the default client only).
- Searchability: Searching for a client via Global Search will show the contact and all matters the client has been added to.
Joint billing
Adding multiple clients to a matter allows you to generate invoices that include the names of all of those clients, removing the need to manually edit bills with external tools. When adding a client, you can choose whether they should be a bill recipient, which determines whether they receive a copy of the bill.
Joint billing is therefore suited to situations where all clients are jointly liable for the bill. You can continue using split billing if clients need separate invoices for their portion of the bill.
To generate a new joint bill, go to Billing, then click New bills. Multi-Client Matters does not currently support generating Quick Bills.
Multi-Client client funds accounting
Client funds received from any client added to a matter can be deposited and held at the matter level. The record will log which client paid the funds.
When applying available client funds to a bill, you will need to select the client whose client funds you would like to apply to the bill. Currently, Clio does not allow you to specify an order or draw from multiple clients in a single transaction.
Client funds account reports
The following reports support multi-client client funds accounting:
- Client ledger
- Client funds ledger
- Client funds listing
- Client funds management
- Client funds interest calculation
All other reports will continue to apply only to the default client.
Client portals
When you create a new client portal for a matter with multiple clients, Clio will add all clients to the portal. This ensures every client has access to communications, updates, and documents.
If the client portal was created before adding additional clients to a matter, you will need to manually add those clients to the portal.