Managing Firm Members > Access control overview

Access control overview

Amicus Attorney provides security on the firm's information at several levels:

Access Class—determines whether a Person has any right to access Amicus Attorney at all.
Office Access—determines whether a Firm Member has access to another Firm Member's Office and, if so, what he or she is permitted to do.
Firm Member Designations—determine some additional rights of a Firm Member.
Security Profile—determines which elements of Amicus Attorney a user can view and/or perform actions on.
Record Restriction—controls read and write access on individual records.

Security is cumulative across these levels, following a "most restrictive" model. For example, if a File has edit Restrictions set and the user is not included in the record's list of permitted editors, then they cannot edit the File, even if their access rights would permit File editing otherwise.

Access Class

The Access Class assigned to a Person determines their rights and level of access to Amicus Attorney. At the highest level, a Person might or might not have access to Amicus Attorney at all. The Classes are:

Active Firm Member—This is the default assigned when a new Firm Member is added. Firm Members with this Access Class can be licensed and are available for selection in Select People dialogs.
Former Firm Member—You would generally assign this Access Class to Firm Members when they leave the firm. A Former Firm Member cannot be assigned an Amicus Attorney license and cannot access Amicus Attorney, but their Office may still be accessed by previously assigned Assistants and Colleagues. They are not available for selection in Select People dialogs. You can assign this Class to a Firm Member in their Administration Profile.
Former firm members that remain in Amicus Attorney for historical purposes do not appear in lists when opening an Office avoiding the possibility of a former firm member being assigned to a file or being added to a group.

For more information about Former Firm Members, see Designating a departed Firm Member as a Former Firm Member, and for information on transferring records, see Transferring Firm Member data.

Note: You can prevent an Active Firm Member from accessing Amicus by selecting their Deny Access checkbox in the User Management window. This is generally done on a temporary basis.

Office Access

Each Firm Member can determine whether to grant limited access to their Office to all Firm Members or particular ones as Guest Assistants or Guest Colleagues. Amicus Administrators may set this feature:

Individually, in each Firm Member's record—for more information, see the Sharing access to an Office topic in User Help.
Centrally, in one or more Firm Members' records, via the Guest Access function in User Management—for more information, see Setting Guest Access to Firm Member Offices.

Firm Member Designations

Amicus Administrators may designate each Firm Member with special rights:

Timekeeper—can track their time and be mapped to an accounting system for information exchanges via an accounting link. Only Timekeepers have the Time module in their Office. (The Timekeeper designation may also be set in the User Management window.) For more information, see the Time section of User Help.
Librarian—can manage the Firm Library content. For more information, see the Library section of User Help.
Administrator—an Amicus Administrator, with access to the administrative functions of Amicus Attorney. For more information, see Using Amicus Attorney as an Administrator.
Edit Security Profiles—an Amicus Administrator who has been granted the right to create and edit Security Profiles. For security purposes, granting this right causes a Sticky message to be sent, notifying all Administrators and any Firm Members who are assigned a Security Profile giving them the right to view all Contacts and Files.

Security Profile

You can assign a Security Profile to Active Firm Members to limit the particular areas of Amicus Attorney they can view, and the particular actions they can perform.

Record assignments and Restrictions

In the course of day-to-day use of Amicus Attorney, Firm Members are assigned to Files, Appointments, To Do's, Phone Calls, Notes, Time Entries, and other types of records.

A Firm Member assigned to a record can further restrict access to that particular record by setting Restrictions on it. They can hide the record completely from users not assigned to it, or can restrict editing of the record to selected assigned users.