One contact directory everything points back to.
Contacts are the people and companies your firm deals with: clients, opposing parties, witnesses, experts, vendors. Almost everything else points back to one, so a complete record pays off for months.
Everyone your firm deals with, in one list
Your directory holds more than clients: the opposing counsel you keep running into, the expert you used twice, the insurer. People and companies get their own fields, and your tags filter the list.
Contacts feed the rest of the app. A matter, a lead, an invoice, an event, and a document all attach to a record here, which is what a conflict check screens against.
Working with contactsPeople and companies
Two contact types, each with the fields that actually apply.
Tags your firm defines
Color-coded labels you can filter the whole list by.
Shaped to the way your firm files people
No two firms describe a contact the same way. Custom fields hold the preferred language or the referral fee, employees link to their company, and the record gathers the work behind the name.
Build your contact directory.
Browse the docsFAQs
Contact types, tags, custom fields, comments, import, and archiving.
Who belongs in contacts?
Everyone your firm deals with, well beyond the ones paying you. Clients, opposing parties, witnesses, expert witnesses, vendors, and the companies any of them belong to. Matters, leads, invoices, events, and documents all connect back to a contact, so a party that only exists inside the text of a note is invisible to everything else.
What is the difference between a person and a company?
They are two contact types with different fields. A person carries name parts including prefix and suffix, while a company carries a company name, trade name, and type. You can link a person to the company they work for, so opening the company shows its people and opening the person shows where they work.
How do tags work?
Tags are short color-coded labels you attach to a contact, and they are firm-wide, so once anyone creates one every member can apply it. Use them for whatever your firm sorts by: VIP, referral source, opposing party, do not contact, a language someone speaks. You can filter the whole contacts list by tag.
Can I record details Esqase does not ask for?
Yes, through custom fields. Define a field once and it becomes available on contacts, and a field set bundles several together so you can add them in one click rather than one at a time. That is how a firm records a preferred language or a referral arrangement without waiting for a feature.
Can I see everything we have done with one person?
Open the contact. Its tabs gather the tasks, events, notes, documents, form submissions, invoices, and transactions tied to that name, and the overview adds the matters where they are the client, the matters where they are a related contact, a comment thread for what the team should know about dealing with them, and a running activity timeline.
Where do we note how to handle someone?
In the contact's own comment thread, on the Overview tab. It is the place for how a person prefers to be reached, a relationship worth flagging before somebody picks up the phone, or the context whoever inherits the file will need. Mention a colleague with @ to pull them in and they are notified, and the thread stays on the contact rather than in the inbox of whoever learned it first.
Can I move an existing client list in?
Yes. Contacts import in bulk from a CSV, which is the usual first step when a firm moves across from another system or from a spreadsheet. The importer only creates new contacts, so it never updates or merges into records you already have, and there is no undo for an import.
What happens to a contact we stop working with?
Archive it. The record and its history stay while the contact drops out of your active list, though archiving does detach it from any events, tasks, and communication logs it was assigned to. A contact still linked to a matter or a lead cannot be archived until that matter or lead is deleted, and deleting a contact is only offered once it is archived.