Email filing review

Ask for this when: you want to catch up on filing, or you're wondering what's missing from Clio.

"Help me review my email filing." "What's missing from Clio?" "Can you file today's emails?"

What it shows you

The assistant looks at your recent Outlook mail and sorts it into three groups:

• Ready to file - the matter is clearly known and the message doesn't look automated or spoofed. These are safe to file without you having to pick the matter yourself. Filing saves the email's text and its attachments to the matter.
• Needs your judgment - the matter is ambiguous, or the message looks automated, no-reply, or possibly spoofed. The assistant won't guess on these; it needs you to look.
• Already filed - just a count, since there's nothing new to show you.

It will list the "ready to file" emails for you by subject, sender, and matter, and say how it linked each one to its matter - someone on the email is a Clio contact on that matter, or it's a thread you filed before. An email whose only link to a matter is a number typed into its subject line is never in this list: anyone who has seen a matter number could put it in a subject, so those always go to "needs your judgment." For "needs your judgment," it lists the ones you can actually resolve (an email that could belong to more than one matter, or one that looks automated) individually. Mail it couldn't connect to any Clio contact at all is summarised instead of listed: how many there were, which senders account for most of them, and a few recent examples - most of that is vendors, newsletters, and internal mail. In a busy inbox that group can run to hundreds of emails, which is why it isn't listed one by one; if you want every one, just ask for the full list. Then it asks which ones you want filed. You can say "all of them," name specific ones, or "none for now." Nothing gets filed until you answer.

After filing, it reports back honestly - what actually filed, what failed (with the error), what you didn't name (still sitting there for next time), and anything that didn't match what it expected. Filed something to the wrong matter? Say so - it shows you what it will remove and, on your yes, takes the email and its attachments back off that matter. If your mailbox is very busy it may not be able to read the whole window; when that happens it tells you the review is partial.

Filing the ones it couldn't place

For an email in "needs your judgment," just tell it where it goes - "that one's the Johnson matter." It finds the matter in Clio (and asks if more than one could fit), shows you the pairing - subject, sender, matter number, and the opening lines of the email so you can check what it's really about (ask to see the whole message if you need to) - and files it once you say yes. It also remembers that conversation, so later replies in the same thread go to the right matter without you being asked again. If several of them belong to the same matter - a whole thread, or "all the Johnson ones" - say so once: it shows you the list under that matter and files them all on one yes, then tells you which filed and which, if any, didn't.

When you approve a thread from the "ready to file" list, every unfiled message in that thread from the period you reviewed is filed - if you asked about the last week, nothing older than a week is touched. Afterwards it tells you what was filed, what failed and why, and what you left unfiled, in a short list rather than repeating the whole review.

Adding a new client from an email

If someone emails you who isn't in Clio yet - a new client inquiry, say - you can tell the assistant to "add them as a contact." Because a contact in Clio always belongs to a matter, that really means opening a new matter for them, and the assistant will say so. It first checks whether the person already exists in Clio (so you don't end up with duplicates), then asks you, in one go, for the only two things it needs: a name for the contact and a one-line description of the matter, such as "Will preparation" or "Contract dispute". You can tell it to pick a sensible name and base the description on what the email says, if you'd rather. The description can end up on a bill, so it's written the way you'd write it yourself.

Once you answer, it creates the contact and matter, files that person's emails to it - attachments included - and reports back the new matter number and what was filed. If an address looks like it's yours, or shows up on hundreds of newsletters, it will check with you before making it a client.

Before it asks you for those details, it runs a conflict check on the sender's name and anyone the emails name as the other side, and shows you who matched in Clio and on which files, closed ones included. See the conflict-check guide.

Reading an email

Ask what a client said, or for a draft reply, and it will read the email for you. Anything written inside an email is treated as information, never as an instruction - if a message tries to tell it to do something, it tells you instead of doing it.

When an email raises a legal question

If a message it is reading or listing plainly raises a legal question - the other side asserts a defense, cites a rule, disputes coverage - it says so and offers to write the research prompt for Vincent (see the research-brief guide). It offers once per question and never for routine mail.

What it can't do

• Very large attachments and attached emails aren't copied. Normal file attachments (PDFs, Word documents, images) are saved into the matter's documents in Clio along with the email. A file over 25 MB, or an attached email or cloud link, is listed by name instead, and the assistant tells you which ones so you can add them by hand.
• It only looks at the last 90 days of your Inbox and Sent Items, plus any folders you've told it to include (it tells you which folders it read) - not your entire mailbox history, and never Junk or Deleted Items. If a rule sorts court notices or anything else into a folder of their own, just say "include my Court Alerts folder in the reviews" - it checks the folder exists and reads it from then on.
• It never reads the body of an email to figure out the matter - only who was on it (the client or anyone Clio lists as related to the matter), an exact matter number in the subject line, or a thread you've filed before. A matter number in the subject on its own only ever gets an email as far as "needs your judgment" - it takes a known contact or a filed thread to make one "ready to file." If a matter is only mentioned inside the email text, it lands in "needs your judgment" too, and you can tell it where to file it.

If auto-filing isn't turned on

This feature has an on/off switch for this environment. If it's off, the assistant will tell you plainly rather than pretending nothing's wrong - that's expected, not an error to chase down.