Permissions & Roles
Control workspace capabilities and access to legal work.
Ardela separates firm responsibilities from access to legal work. A role decides what kind of action a member may take. Ownership and Matter grants decide which files they can open.
Workspace owners and authorised admins manage roles under Settings → Permissions.
Built-in roles
| Role | Typical responsibility | Casework |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Workspace ownership, billing, and full administration | Still needs Matter ownership or a grant |
| Admin | Workspace settings, members, and operational administration | Still needs Matter ownership or a grant |
| Member | Create and manage permitted legal work | Private work and granted Matter work |
| Read-only | View existing work they can access | No creating, editing, sharing, or new Clara work |
| Transcriber | Complete recordings made available through the queue | Assigned recordings only; not part of the Legal team |
These are the built-in role tiers. Workspaces can also create custom roles on the Member tier for responsibilities such as practice manager, senior associate, or reviewer. An empty custom role can still do ordinary work on a Matter with Work access. It is not Read-only.
Read-only is a paid seat. Transcriber seats are free.
Create a custom role
- Open Settings → Permissions
- Select New role
- Give the role a clear name
- Enable only the capabilities it needs
- Assign the role under Settings → Members
Permission areas include opening clients and matters, feature execution (recordings generation, Clara, reviews, forms, Pillars), firm templates and workflows, reporting, people and access, and workspace administration.
None of these permissions opens an unrelated Matter.
Matter access
A permission answers whether a member may perform a type of action. It does not by itself grant access to every client, matter, recording, or Pillar.
Each Matter has:
- an owner;
- View, Work, or Manage grants for members or groups;
- inherited access for the work on that file.
Administrators do not receive a bypass of Matter content. Client access does not open every matter for that client. See Matter access.
Review access regularly
- Use the least-privilege role that fits the member's work
- Share each Matter with only the people who need it
- Transfer ownership before changing a Matter owner to Read-only
- Deactivate leavers promptly
- Review custom roles after team or practice changes
- Keep at least one active workspace owner