Overview
Ethical walls let your firm control who can see a contact's Engage workflows. Every contact is either firm-wide, so any user at your firm can see its Engage workflows, or restricted to the named users and departments you choose. You may also see this called contact visibility.
This is most useful for firms that work with sensitive or confidential clients, run employee checks in Legl, or want to limit who can see a client's onboarding checks.
What you can use Ethical walls for
Restrict a contact's Engage workflows to named users, to one or more departments, or to both
Keep a sensitive or VIP client's onboarding checks private to the people working on the matter
Give more than one team access where needed, for example the acting team and the compliance team
Protect the records of employees checked through Legl
How Ethical walls work
Each contact has one access setting, and it applies to all of that contact's Engage workflows.
Firm-wide: all users can view the contact's Engage workflows.
Restricted: only the users and departments you select can view them. You can select named users, departments, or both.
Access is set when the contact is created, either from Create contact or when creating an Engage request for a new contact. The person creating it must give themselves access.
After that, only Admins can change who has access.
Every change is recorded in the contact's history: what changed, who changed it and when.
ℹ️ Further guidance
Where to find Ethical walls in Legl
When you create a contact or an Engage request for a new contact, under Who can see this contact's Engage workflows?. See How to restrict access to a contact's Engage workflows.
On a contact's page, under the contact's name, next to Visibility. Admins can edit it from there and open the history. See How to change who can access a contact's Engage workflows.
Ethical walls are enabled for your firm by Legl. If you would like it enabled, contact our Support team.
Permissions and access
Admins can see every contact and every Engage workflow, and can change who has access to a contact.
Other users can see Engage workflows for firm-wide contacts, and for restricted contacts where they have been added by name or through their department.
Users with no department can only see Engage workflows for firm-wide contacts, and for restricted contacts where they have been added by name.
If you open a contact you do not have access to, the Activity tab shows a message that you do not have permission to view these details. See Understanding what users can see with Ethical walls.
Important information
Ethical walls apply to Engage workflows only. They do not yet apply to Risk Assessments or payments.
They restrict a contact's Engage workflows, not the contact's details. Other users can still see the contact in the contact list, with their name, email address and address.
Ethical walls are not available for firms that use the Consultancy Model. See What is the Consultancy Model in Legl?.
Before you deactivate a user, check whether they are the only non-Admin user with access to any contacts. See How to deactivate or remove a user from Legl.