Changelog

Money

Trust accounting is a real ledger. Double-entry, and nothing is edited or deleted. A mistake is corrected with an entry that stays visible beside it. Balances are worked out from the entries rather than kept as a separate figure, so there is no second number to disagree with the first. A matter’s balance can be reconstructed as it stood on any past date. The ledger refuses to overdraw a matter, and trust money is kept strictly apart from the firm’s own.

Moving funds between matters is recorded as one entry, not two that could half-fail.

Rates sit wherever they belong. Set one for the firm, for a person, for a case, or for a single charge — the more specific wins. A rate negotiated on a case holds for whoever does the work. Someone whose time the firm doesn’t bill won’t quietly bill at the firm’s rate.

Time is recorded where the work happened — on the hearing, the task, or the call — and becomes a charge from there.

Charges know what they are: time, an expense, or an adjustment. An expense is no longer an hour at a made-up rate.

Invoices say who did the work, not who typed the record.

A firm-wide billing page shows what’s owed and how long it’s been owed, work not yet invoiced, trust balances, and the draft invoices nobody sent.

Each case shows what’s been charged, invoiced and paid, with every payment and its date.

Cases

Everything belongs to a case. Documents, correspondence and charges are filed against the case they came from. Nothing floats loose.

A consult is a real case from the first phone call, numbered immediately. It becomes a live case by changing its status, so the notes, calendar entries and people on it stay attached. If it doesn’t convert, it closes with a reason — declined, conflict, went elsewhere. Consults stay out of the main case list and remain findable.

Seventy-seven practice areas, and each carries its own standard steps — offered when you open a case, never forced on one, and yours to edit.

The court’s case number is separate from your own file number, and gets filled in when the court assigns it.

“Next up” is worked out from the real deadlines on a case rather than a field somebody has to remember to update.

Hearings and deadlines are kept apart from tasks. A hearing happens whether or not anyone is ready. A task is work the firm decided to do.

An adjournment keeps its history. The new date is chained to the one it replaced, so the record shows a hearing that moved rather than a hearing that vanished.

A case can’t be deleted once a client has written to it. The correspondence is theirs as much as yours.

People

One record per person, reused on every case they appear on, picked from the list rather than typed in again.

Label people the way the court does — Respondent Mother, Lawyer-Guardian ad Litem, Petitioner — alongside their role on the case. The suggestions match the practice area, so a firm doing personal injury never sees child-welfare wording, and whatever your firm types is offered back next time.

An attorney links to their firm, and a firm’s record lists its attorneys.

Counsel is linked to the people they act for, so the page reads “counsel for” without anyone retyping it.

Adding a contact asks four things. The rest goes on later, when you have it.

Talking to each other

Messages inside the firm. Everyone has an inbox, and a note to a colleague about a case sits on that case rather than in an email thread nobody else can see. New messages are flagged, including from clients.

Correspondence that leaves the building stays separate from notes between your own staff.

The calendar

Events take up the time they take. A four-hour trial occupies four hours.

Three views: your own work, the attorneys you support, or the whole firm. Thistle remembers which you chose.

Colors stay with the person, not the screen.

A hearing shows the judge for that case without anyone typing it, with the courtroom and chambers number a click away.

Book two things against the same person and Thistle says so.

Working together

Choose which attorneys you support, and their calendar and work appear in your view automatically. One assistant can support several attorneys, and one attorney can have several assistants.

One login across firms. A person who works at two firms signs in once and holds a separate role at each.

Access can be revoked and restored, separately from whether the seat is still being paid for.

Adding a colleague shows the cost first, before anything is charged.

The client portal

Documents are shared one at a time, by a person, and nothing is shared by default.

Thistle records what was shared and when, keeping the document’s title as it was at that moment.

What a client sends waits for review before it reaches the case file.

Read receipts run both ways on messages.

Your records

Nothing in Thistle can delete a document. Every version of every file is kept — replace one and the earlier version is still there.

A complete export, whenever you want it. Your firm’s records and every document file. If you leave, you leave with everything.

Signing up

A firm signs up, pays, and starts working — no call, no setup, nobody at Thistle involved.

The first administrator is invited by email and chooses their own password. Nobody at Thistle ever knows anyone’s credential.

What Thistle doesn’t do

It doesn’t guess. Thistle records what a firm tells it and shows it back. It doesn’t summarize, predict or generate, and it never will.

It doesn’t show charts nobody acts on. Every figure on a page is there because somebody does something about it.

Recording deposits

• A Record Retainer Deposit button on the case page logs a trust deposit — amount, date received, and an optional check or reference number — without opening the whole case to edit.
• Deposits are dated to when the funds were actually collected, not when the record was entered.

The trust ledger

• Each case now shows a running trust ledger: every deposit and every application to an invoice, with dates, amounts, and the resulting balance.
• "Retainer Available" reflects funds actually held in trust — deposits minus amounts applied to invoices — so the figure shown is what remains, not what was originally deposited.

This gives you a clear picture of what is held versus what has been billed. It is a record-keeping aid, not a substitute for your firm's own trust account reconciliation or its obligations under applicable trust-accounting rules.

Messages

The Messages table on the Dashboard now shows a Sent/Received date instead of "Created," matching the Messages page — so you see when a message actually came in or went out, not when the record was added.

Granting access

Access is granted one case at a time, to one person, by the firm. Nothing happens automatically. Staff invite a client from the Client Portal panel on the case page. The client receives an email and chooses their own password.

Only the firm's own client on a matter can be given a portal. Opposing parties, opposing counsel, guardians ad litem, and children on a case cannot be issued one.

Revoking access takes effect immediately. Closing a case revokes every portal on it.

What a client sees

• Where things stand — a short update written by the firm in plain English, not docket shorthand. Past updates remain as a dated history, so there is a record of what the client was told and when. Drafts stay private until staff publish them.
• Their hearings — date, time, location, and what the hearing is for.
• What they need to do — a checklist set by the firm. Clients tick items off as they finish them, and staff see what was completed and when.
• Documents the firm has shared — nothing else. Each document is shared individually, by a staff member. A document marked confidential cannot be shared.
• Messages to their legal team — a simple thread. There is no recipient to choose and no address book to browse. Messages reach the firm and only the firm.
• Their legal team — their attorney and paralegal, with contact details.

What a client never sees

• The firm's contacts, internal notes, task list, or correspondence with the court, opposing counsel, or any agency.
• Other parties on the case.
• Billing rates, time entries, or anything the firm has not explicitly shared.

Files a client sends

Clients can send a document to their legal team. It arrives in a review queue on the case page rather than in the case file.

Staff review it and either file it or decline it. Nothing a client sends reaches the case file until a staff member puts it there.

A record of what was shared

Every case keeps a log of what was shared, who viewed it, and when — useful if a client ever says they were not told.

Elsewhere

The Client Portal panel sits at the bottom of each case page, collapsed by default, with a badge when a client is waiting on a reply.

The portal shares the same oatmeal cream and deep navy design as the rest of Thistle.

Messages

• Logging a message no longer requires re-typing contact details. Type the caller's name and Thistle pulls their email and phone from your contacts automatically.
• Message statuses were reduced from five (New, In Progress, Waiting, Completed, Closed) to two: Open and Completed.
• A one-click "Completed" button now closes out a message without opening it to edit.
• A new "Needs Attention" view surfaces communications with an open follow-up and flags overdue ones in red. Added filters by channel, person, and case.

Tasks

• The task list now defaults to open tasks sorted by due date, with overdue items flagged in red and an overdue count at the top. (It previously showed completed work first.)
• A one-click "Mark Done" button closes a task directly from the list.
• Added "My Tasks" and "Unassigned" views, plus filters by assignee and case.

Cases

• The case list is now the primary view, with filters for Practice Area, Court, County, Status, and Assigned Attorney, defaulting to open cases.
• New columns: Client, Next Up (soonest deadline or event, overdue items flagged), and Last Activity.
• The individual Case page consolidates parties, judge, dates, tasks, messages, events, documents, and invoices in one place.

Contacts

• New conflict-of-interest flag: Thistle now alerts you when a contact appears on both sides of your matters. This is a prompt to review, not a substitute for your own conflict-checking process or professional judgment.
• Added role-based views (Clients, Opposing, Attorneys, Judges, Staff), search, and a quick-look panel showing a person's matters and communications.

Billing

• Billing tables are now sortable and paginated.
• Task and Message pages now show whether an item is billable and offer a "Bill This" shortcut.
• The mark-billable-to-invoice pipeline is unchanged. Completing or editing a task or message will not drop its billability or its place on an invoice.

Calendar, Documents & Notes

• Calendar header cleaned up.
• Documents and Notes now have clickable links to the related case and contact, with cleaner sortable tables. All existing actions (download, delete, edit, archive) still work.

Design

• Every major screen now shares one visual style — an oatmeal cream and deep navy theme with consistent colors, fonts, spacing, buttons, tables, and forms — so the app reads as one product rather than a set of separate pages.
• The navigation menu is now navy with light icons.
• The top bar branding was refined, ending with the navy Thistle flower mark.
• Restyled pages: Dashboard, Contacts, Cases, Calendar, Tasks, Messages, Documents, Notes, Billing, all record and add/edit pages.