In Clio Manage, you can streamline your matter creation process using matter templates. Matter templates contain preset information that will automatically populate when you create a new matter or edit an existing matter. This allows you to spend less time entering common data into matters and helps with consistency across newly created matters.
Note: Matter templates are not available on all subscription plans. See which plans have matter templates here. If you need to upgrade your firm's plan, ask an administrator to follow the directions here.
Create matter templates
The Primary subscriber and Administrators can create new matter templates. The firm's account can have up to 200 matter templates. Once created, any firm user can select a matter template when creating a new matter to speed up their matter-creation workflow.
Tip: Learn more about each section in the matter form here.
- Go to Matters and select Matter Templates.
- Click New matter template.
- In the Template information section, name your matter template.
- Optional: If you want this template to automatically be applied when creating all new matters, turn the Use as matter default template toggle to the on position. You can only have one default matter template across your firm account. You can always change the default template by editing a matter template.
- Under the remaining matter form sections, enter the information that you want to preset in the empty fields.
- When a firm user creates a new matter, these fields will pre-populate in the matter form. The fields are not locked in and can be changed when creating a matter.
- Learn more about each section of the matter form here.
- Click Save template.
Edit matter templates
The Primary subscriber and Administrators can edit existing matter templates. Changes made to an existing template will not affect any matters that were previously created using the template.
- Go to Matters and select Matter Templates.
- Find the template that you want to edit.
- Under the Actions column, click the pencil icon. Alternatively, you can click on the template name in the Template column.
- Make any necessary changes. You can also change your firm's default template by turning the Use as matter default template toggle to the on position.
- Click Save template.
Set default matter template
The Primary subscriber and Administrators can set a default matter template. Your firm account can only have one default matter template. Once set, this template will automatically be applied to all new matters that firm users create. When you create a new matter template and set it as the default template, it will automatically replace any other matter template set as the default template. You can also manually set a new default template from your list of existing matter templates.
- Go to Matters and select Matter Templates.
- Find the template that you want to be your firm's new default template.
- Under the Actions column, click the pencil icon.
- Under the Template information section, turn the Use as matter default template toggle to the on position.
- Click Save template.
Remove default matter template
The Primary subscriber and Administrators can remove default matter template.
Note: You do not need to remove a default matter in order to set a new default. Setting a new default will replace the existing default.
If you previously set a default matter template and want to remove it:
- Go to Matters and select Matter Templates.
- Find the default template (marked with a Default tag), then under the Actions column, click the more actions icon (three horizontal dots).
- Select Remove as default.
Delete matter templates
The Primary subscriber and Administrators can delete existing matter templates. Once a matter template is deleted, it will no longer be available for use by any firm user and the template cannot be restored.
- Go to Matters and select Matter Templates.
- Find the template that you want to delete.
- Under the Actions column, click the more actions icon (three horizontal dots).
- Select Delete.
- When prompted to confirm the action, click Delete.
Use matter templates
Use matter templates to quickly create new matters with great consistency or to edit existing matters.
In Clio Manage, you can create a matter from the main Matters tab, the main Contacts tab, or by using the Create new button from the header. Create matters in Clio Manage provides instructions for each of these options. For each of these options, when you arrive to the New matter page:
- Under the Template information section, select Use an existing template from the dropdown.
- Select the template to populate the fields from the template.
- Fill in any additional information and click Save matter.
In some cases it may be useful to retroactively apply a matter template to an existing matter. For example, once you converted a matter from Clio Grow to Manage, you can apply a matter template to the existing matter to quickly and consistently add information to the matter fields.
- In Clio Manage, click Edit next to the matter name.
- Under the Template information section, select Use an existing template from the dropdown.
- Select the template.
- Fields from the template will populate any unfilled fields in the existing matter. These fields will be highlighted to enable the user to easily review the added information. Matter fields that were previously filled will remain unchanged.
- Fill in any additional information and click Save matter.