A CRM for lawyers has to run the case after the contract is signed: the client’s documents per the regulator’s requirements, review by a lawyer, deadlines, the assigned lawyer, payment in stages and the final entry in the register. A sales CRM stops at the contract, while a law firm’s main work runs for months after it, so in the system a deal has to turn into a case. Below is what that takes, using GORONO as the example - a company for which we built the website, CRM, case management, documents, finance, portals and a Telegram bot as one system with one database.
GORONO helps schools, training centres, clinics and other organisations in Russia obtain an education licence, a medical licence, a fire safety licence from MChS (the Russian emergencies ministry), occupational safety accreditation and a sanitary certificate. A single case runs for months, involves dozens of client documents, and every track has its own regulator and deadlines.
How a law firm differs from ordinary sales
In ordinary sales a deal closes with the payment, and the CRM has done its job. For lawyers the main part starts after the payment. During the sale you had to remember whom to call back. Afterwards you have to remember other things: which documents the client has already sent, which version of the charter is the latest, what was sent back for rework and why, when the filing is, and whether the organisation has appeared in the register.
Before the new system, GORONO kept clients, deals, documents and money in different programs and spreadsheets, each paid for separately, with data copied between them by hand. Scans arrived by messenger, email and file-sharing links. A request for “documents on your specialist” brought back the wrong ones, and every round of clarification cost three days to a week. Lawyers and clients phoned each other directly, and when a case stalled, the client believed they were waiting for the lawyer and the lawyer believed the opposite.
If you are looking for a CRM for lawyers and attorneys, start with one question: where does the sale end and the case begin? If weeks of document work follow the contract, that is the part of the system that needs the most attention. Otherwise lawyers keep running cases in messengers and the CRM stays with the sales team.
| What is needed | A sales CRM | A law firm CRM, as built for GORONO |
|---|---|---|
| End of the work | Contract signed, payment received | The organisation appears in the regulator’s register |
| Client documents | Attachments to the deal | Blocks per regulator requirements, upload slots with hints, review by a lawyer |
| Lawyer’s access | Sees the client’s contacts | Sees only their own clients, without phone numbers or emails |
| Money | One payment per deal | Invoices for the whole contract or a stage, bank statement every hour |
What a CRM for lawyers needs at the start: client and deal
A law firm’s client is almost always an organisation, so in GORONO a client card is created from the tax number (INN). Name, registration numbers, address, lines of business and current licences are filled in automatically; only the director’s name is typed by hand. If the number is not found, the system highlights the fields to fill in and does not block the work.
A deal is built from a single service dictionary. The abbreviation, colour and name of a service are stored once and look the same in the deal, in finance, in the bot and in the client portal. Rename a service in the dictionary and it changes everywhere. That seems minor while there are few services. When there are dozens and each one is spelled differently in three places, keeping them in line becomes a job of its own.
Leads from the site, from the bot and from paid consultations land in a deal with the right service. A commercial proposal is generated from the deal and sent by a link with a personal access code, so only the client can open it.
Contracts, invoices and acts from the deal data
GORONO used to type a contract with an invoice by hand in 30-40 minutes, and mistakes in the details surfaced after signing. Now the contract is assembled at the press of a button: number and date, client details, signatory and their authority, services with prices, payment stages, deadlines.
A few places where templates usually go wrong:
- The total. It is calculated from the selected services and cannot be typed in, so the figure in the contract header and in the annex always match.
- Amount in words and grammatical cases. Russian contracts need names and cities in specific grammatical cases; the system sets them itself.
- The signatory. If a deputy signs under a power of attorney, their details replace the director’s.
The finished contract goes to the client for approval and downloads as Word and PDF. An invoice covers the whole contract or one stage and carries a payment QR code: the client points the banking app camera at it and the payment details fill in by themselves. Contract, invoices and acts go to the client in one email straight from the deal card, and the whole set takes a couple of minutes.
Client documents and regulator deadlines
Sales CRMs do not have this part, and it is the reason a law firm should build a system around its own work.
In GORONO each service is split into blocks set by the regulator; a fire safety licence for a company has 16 of them. Each block has upload slots with a precise hint, for example “Copy of the property register extract (not the company register)”. When the regulator wants a phrase in the charter word for word, the system shows it ready to copy. The client sends the right thing the first time more often, and there are fewer rounds of “please send it again”.
The lawyer accepts a block, sends it back for rework or rejects it. A document cannot be returned without a comment, so the client always knows what to fix. The screen says whose move it is. The manager sees deadline counters that turn red when a case is stuck with the client or with the lawyer.
Once the package is accepted, the client picks a filing time in the bot and everyone is reminded an hour before. After filing, the system checks the registers of the education and labour regulators every two hours on working days. That works because the Russian licensing law requires licensing authorities to keep licence registers in electronic form and make their data openly available, including the licence holder’s tax number. As soon as the organisation appears in the register, the client, the lawyer and the administrator get a congratulation, and nobody visits regulators’ websites by hand.
Lawyers and access to client data
In a law firm a specific lawyer runs the case and needs a screen of their own. GORONO has four portals: client, lawyer, administrator and accountant. The client sees their services, documents and what is expected of them. A lawyer sees only their own clients and has no access to their phone numbers or emails. The accountant has the bank, contracts, invoices, acts and taxes; everything else is closed.
Client and lawyer talk through the bot. Phone numbers are cut out of messages, voice notes are transcribed, and the administrator sees the whole conversation and can reply. A client cannot be taken past the company, because the lawyer does not know their phone number, and the case history stays in the system even if the lawyer changes.
Splitting access is also a legal matter. A law firm’s CRM holds passports, powers of attorney and people’s contacts, which is personal data. Article 19 of the Russian personal data law (152-FZ) lists, among the protection measures, setting rules of access to personal data and recording all actions with it in the information system. In GORONO those rules are set by the portals: each person sees only their part of the case.
A lawyer’s fee is accrued automatically when they are assigned to a service. The lawyer confirms the accrual and marks the money as received. Every step can be rolled back and every step is logged.
Staged payments: bank, tax and profit
When cases are paid in stages and there are many clients, matching payments by hand takes hours. Before the new system, answering “how much did we make in June” took GORONO’s accountant half a day.
Now the bank statement is pulled in every hour. A payment finds the client by the payer’s tax number and links itself to the deal when there is only one option. Ambiguous payments go to a “review manually” list instead of being guessed. The director gets a Telegram message about every incoming payment.
Every payment and every expense has two dates: planned and actual. Profit and tax under the simplified regime (a common Russian small business tax system) are calculated from actual cash movement. When a month is closed, the system saves a snapshot of the figures and schedules the tax as a planned expense for the 28th of the following month. It fills in the simplified-tax return from bank receipts and turns a supplier’s PDF invoice into a payment order and an expense.
Where the leads come from
A CRM works with what gets into it. GORONO’s leads come from gorono.pro, a site built around search queries: the semantic core has 360 queries and the sitemap lists more than 50 pages. It has a cost calculator, a section on fees and deadlines and paid consultations with a fiscal receipt under 54-FZ, the Russian law on cash receipts. A payment finds the client by phone number, opens a deal and notifies the director.
The second way in is the bot. A visitor without a contract can check any organisation’s licence or accreditation by tax number there, and for many people that is how they first meet the company.
Frequently asked questions
How does a CRM for lawyers differ from a sales CRM?
A sales CRM ends with the signed contract and the payment. A CRM for lawyers runs the case itself: client documents in blocks per the regulator’s requirements, review by a lawyer, deadlines, staged payments and a register check after filing.
Can we take an off-the-shelf CRM and adapt it for lawyers?
Yes, if your work ends with the contract. If months of work with client documents and a regulator follow, you need document blocks, lawyer review, deadlines, portals and the bank - in GORONO all of that is one system with one database.
How do you stop a lawyer from taking a client away?
Split the access. In GORONO a lawyer sees only their own clients without phone numbers or emails, conversations go through the bot, numbers are cut out of messages, and the administrator sees the whole conversation.
What if the client keeps sending the wrong documents?
Split the service into blocks per the regulator’s requirements and give each upload slot a precise hint. A lawyer cannot return a document without a comment, so the client knows what to fix.
Who owns such a system?
In GORONO’s case, the code, data and domain belong to the company itself.
Who this kind of CRM fits
Companies whose service lasts weeks or months, is built from the client’s documents and ends with a regulator’s decision: legal and accounting firms, licensing and self-regulatory bodies, certification, tender and migration support, cadastral work, design and engineering. The full system is described on the GORONO project page, and our other work is in directions. If your task looks similar, describe it in the form below and we will work out which of these parts you actually need.
