Who can use this feature?

👤 Standard, Contributor, In-House Legal, or Administrator roles

🔑 Requires access to both the matter/contract and the specific files or folders within it.

In this article:

LawVu is equipped with an in-app file explorer that allows you to easily edit, copy, move, and retrieve files from your local storage, as well as from within LawVu itself.

You can easily drag and drop files within the LawVu files area to organize them into folders. Files can be sent via email, as well as previewed in the browser, signed (via one of our signing integrations), or compared (via Litera Compare).

To upload files or folders to a matter or contract in LawVu, open it, navigate to the Files tab, and select Attach files.

From there, you can either click the File or Folder upload button or simply drag and drop the files from your computer into LawVu. When dragging and dropping, you can also drag and drop complete folder structures.

You can also attach files or folders already stored in LawVu by clicking the Matters, Contracts, or Knowledge links in the pane on the left-hand side.

When you select any of these options, you will see the recently worked files and entity-specific work items.

For example, If you select Matters, you should see your recent matter files and then the most recent matters underneath the files:

To see all the files relating to a particular matter, you’ll need to click on that matter, either from the recent list or after searching matters by name. Alternatively, use the same search bar to search for a file name irrespective of the matter name.

Click the checkbox next to the file or files you want to add, and the attach button at the bottom will turn teal. Click it to attach the selected items or click Cancel to abort the action.

The search and recent files functionality are the same for contracts. Please note that you will also be able to select a contract document in addition to any files in the supplementary files tab for that contract record.

Here is a short animation showing how you can upload a file from a different matter to an existing one:

When selecting a file from Knowledge, you will be able to search across both the Articles and the Document index.

You can search for a file by selecting either Articles or Documents and looking through the folders.

To preview a file, click on its name. If the document can be previewed, a dialog box will appear, displaying the file.

Check this article for more information on previewing files.

To rename a file, simply click on it to view it in preview mode.

Place your cursor on the title area and begin editing. The changes will be saved automatically. Any document type can be renamed similarly.

From the Files tab, you can also click the ellipsis button next to the file name and select Rename. It will automatically open the file to preview mode. Place your cursor on the title area to edit it. Press the TAB key when you're done editing, and you'll see a message indicating the file name was updated successfully.
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On the left-hand edge of the Files grid, you will see checkboxes next to the name of each folder and file. You can use these to select multiple items. When you do, the 'Bulk actions' area will be enabled and you can use it to:

The Files tab offers three different view modes for managing your data:

Displays all folders, files, and emails associated with a matter or contract.

This gives you a flat view of all the files in an easy-to-scan list. The folder structure is removed for easy viewing, while the path column denotes the origin folder. The filter is applied to the folder you were in when you initiated the view. Thus, it displays all files within that folder, as well as in all subfolders. It will not display files above your current location, i.e., all the way back to the root folder.

This is where you can view all emails on a matter with columns for 'From', 'To', 'Sent/received', and 'Attachments'.

Again, the filter is applied to the folder you were in when you initiated the view. Thus, it displays all emails within that folder, as well as in all subfolders. It will not display emails above your current location, i.e., all the way back to the root folder.

The Emails view supports both .msg and .eml files.

If you hover over a file or folder, you will see a small ellipsis menu appear and, depending on the integrations you have installed, you should see a menu similar to this:

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To learn more about file and folder actions, check this article.

By default, everyone on a matter or contract can access all files and folders uploaded against it. Using the Manage access option, you can restrict access to specific files or folders.

Once you click Manage access you'll be prompted to select whether you want everyone to see the folder, only selected users, or the folder to be limited to standard users.

You can restrict the folder so that only specific teams or people can access it. The folder will not appear for the rest of the people on that matter or contract.

When a folder is marked as restricted, you'll see this lock icon next to it, indicating that it has been restricted.

For more information about restricted folders, click here.