Document Templates

One library for every reusable document your firm sends — fee-sharing agreements, retainers, engagement letters, NDAs, and any custom document — with merge fields and your choice of e-signature provider.

Document templates are how your firm stops re-typing the same legal language for every new lead and every new partner. Set up a template once with merge fields, and every future document — fee-sharing agreement, retainer, engagement letter, NDA, or anything custom — generates itself with the right names, dates, fees, and signature blocks already in place.

Templates live under Settings → Document Templates and are available to every relevant flow in VerdictFlow: outbound referrals, retainer e-signature on accepted leads, fee-sharing agreements between partners, and one-off documents you generate from a lead detail page.

What's in the library

The library handles every standard legal document your firm sends, plus a "custom" type for anything specific to how you work:

Type	Used for
Fee Sharing	The agreement between your firm and a partner firm when you exchange a referral.
Retainer	The client engagement contract once you've decided to take a case.
Engagement Letter	A formal letter outlining scope, fees, and obligations.
NDA	Non-disclosure for sensitive consults or partner discussions.
Custom	Anything else — release forms, intake disclosures, statute waivers.

Each type can have multiple templates. For example, you might have "PI Retainer (Standard)" and "PI Retainer (High-Value)" both filed under the Retainer type — pick the right one when you generate a document.

Choose your e-signature provider

Templates aren't tied to a single signing tool. Every template declares which provider it routes through:

VerdictFlow — built-in e-signature, no third-party setup. Perfect for getting started or for firms that prefer to keep everything in one platform.
DocuSign — sync templates straight from your DocuSign account, map signer roles and form fields once, and let DocuSign handle delivery and signing.
Adobe Sign — same idea for firms standardized on Adobe.
Dropbox Sign — same idea for firms using Dropbox Sign.

Pick whichever fits your firm. You can mix providers across your library — e.g. fee-sharing on VerdictFlow native, retainers on DocuSign — and the rest of the system doesn't care.

Merge fields

Every template uses merge fields like {{lead.first_name}}, {{partner_firm.name}}, {{fee_percentage}}, or {{signing_date}}. When you generate a document, VerdictFlow fills these in from the live lead, partner firm, and fee deal data.

That means:

Names, addresses, case types, and incident details come from the lead record — no copy/paste from your CRM.
Fee percentages and split terms come from the partner profile or the specific fee deal attached to the referral.
Dates, document numbers, and signer info come from the document generation context.
Anything custom can come from your VF Custom Fields, so firm-specific data flows in too.

The result: documents that are accurate by default, with nothing for your team to manually patch in.

Field and signer mapping (third-party providers)

For DocuSign / Adobe Sign / Dropbox Sign templates, VerdictFlow needs to know:

Which fields in the third-party template map to which VerdictFlow data points (so {{client_name}} in DocuSign gets lead.full_name from VerdictFlow).
Which signer roles map to which VerdictFlow parties (so the "Client" role goes to the lead, the "Attorney" role goes to the assigned attorney, etc.).

The Document Templates page surfaces this with a "Needs setup" badge on any synced template that's missing mapping. Click in, drag the matches, save — done forever.

How a document gets generated

Templates feed into the rest of the product automatically:

Outbound referral with fee sharing → fee-sharing agreement template generates, gets routed to both firms for signature, and lands in both firms' document libraries when fully signed.
Lead status moves to a "send retainer" status (via automation) → the matching retainer template generates and goes to the client for signature.
Manual generation → from any lead detail page, click Generate Document → pick the template → review and send.

The generation step always shows you the populated document before it goes out, so you can edit one-off language without altering the underlying template.

Managing the library

The Document Templates page shows your whole library with quick filters by type and provider. From there you can:

Edit template content, merge fields, or signer mapping.
Clone a template to make a variation (e.g. clone PI Retainer (Standard) into a PI Retainer (Premium) with different fee terms).
Archive a template you're no longer using — preserves it for any documents that still reference it but hides it from "generate document" pickers.
Delete a template — only allowed when no in-flight document still references it.
Set as default for its type — VerdictFlow will reach for the default when no specific template is named in an automation or a fee deal.

Permissions

Owners and admins can create, edit, archive, and delete templates. Members can generate documents using existing templates but can't modify the template definitions themselves.

Best practices

Have your templates reviewed by counsel before going live, especially anything fee-sharing related. VerdictFlow handles delivery and signing; the legal language is yours.
Use merge fields aggressively. Anything you find yourself typing twice should be a merge field.
One default per type. Pick the safest, most generic template as the default for each type, and make specialty templates (e.g. high-value retainer) opt-in.
Name templates for the use case, not the audience. "PI Retainer (Standard)" tells you what it's for; "For Sarah at Smith & Patel" makes the library brittle.

Next steps

Fee-Sharing Agreements — the most common template type and the most automated end-to-end.
Agreements overview — how generated agreements show up in your firm's document library.
Process Automation — wire template generation into your status changes so documents send themselves.

Document Templates

One library for every reusable document your firm sends — fee-sharing agreements, retainers, engagement letters, NDAs, and any custom document — with merge fields and your choice of e-signature provider.

What's in the library

The library handles every standard legal document your firm sends, plus a "custom" type for anything specific to how you work:

Type	Used for
Fee Sharing	The agreement between your firm and a partner firm when you exchange a referral.
Retainer	The client engagement contract once you've decided to take a case.
Engagement Letter	A formal letter outlining scope, fees, and obligations.
NDA	Non-disclosure for sensitive consults or partner discussions.
Custom	Anything else — release forms, intake disclosures, statute waivers.

Choose your e-signature provider

Templates aren't tied to a single signing tool. Every template declares which provider it routes through:

VerdictFlow — built-in e-signature, no third-party setup. Perfect for getting started or for firms that prefer to keep everything in one platform.
DocuSign — sync templates straight from your DocuSign account, map signer roles and form fields once, and let DocuSign handle delivery and signing.
Adobe Sign — same idea for firms standardized on Adobe.
Dropbox Sign — same idea for firms using Dropbox Sign.

Pick whichever fits your firm. You can mix providers across your library — e.g. fee-sharing on VerdictFlow native, retainers on DocuSign — and the rest of the system doesn't care.

Merge fields

That means:

Names, addresses, case types, and incident details come from the lead record — no copy/paste from your CRM.
Fee percentages and split terms come from the partner profile or the specific fee deal attached to the referral.
Dates, document numbers, and signer info come from the document generation context.
Anything custom can come from your VF Custom Fields, so firm-specific data flows in too.

The result: documents that are accurate by default, with nothing for your team to manually patch in.

Field and signer mapping (third-party providers)

For DocuSign / Adobe Sign / Dropbox Sign templates, VerdictFlow needs to know:

Which fields in the third-party template map to which VerdictFlow data points (so {{client_name}} in DocuSign gets lead.full_name from VerdictFlow).
Which signer roles map to which VerdictFlow parties (so the "Client" role goes to the lead, the "Attorney" role goes to the assigned attorney, etc.).

The Document Templates page surfaces this with a "Needs setup" badge on any synced template that's missing mapping. Click in, drag the matches, save — done forever.

How a document gets generated

Templates feed into the rest of the product automatically:

Outbound referral with fee sharing → fee-sharing agreement template generates, gets routed to both firms for signature, and lands in both firms' document libraries when fully signed.
Lead status moves to a "send retainer" status (via automation) → the matching retainer template generates and goes to the client for signature.
Manual generation → from any lead detail page, click Generate Document → pick the template → review and send.

The generation step always shows you the populated document before it goes out, so you can edit one-off language without altering the underlying template.

Managing the library

The Document Templates page shows your whole library with quick filters by type and provider. From there you can:

Edit template content, merge fields, or signer mapping.
Clone a template to make a variation (e.g. clone PI Retainer (Standard) into a PI Retainer (Premium) with different fee terms).
Archive a template you're no longer using — preserves it for any documents that still reference it but hides it from "generate document" pickers.
Delete a template — only allowed when no in-flight document still references it.
Set as default for its type — VerdictFlow will reach for the default when no specific template is named in an automation or a fee deal.

Permissions

Owners and admins can create, edit, archive, and delete templates. Members can generate documents using existing templates but can't modify the template definitions themselves.

Best practices

Have your templates reviewed by counsel before going live, especially anything fee-sharing related. VerdictFlow handles delivery and signing; the legal language is yours.
Use merge fields aggressively. Anything you find yourself typing twice should be a merge field.
One default per type. Pick the safest, most generic template as the default for each type, and make specialty templates (e.g. high-value retainer) opt-in.
Name templates for the use case, not the audience. "PI Retainer (Standard)" tells you what it's for; "For Sarah at Smith & Patel" makes the library brittle.

Next steps

Fee-Sharing Agreements — the most common template type and the most automated end-to-end.
Agreements overview — how generated agreements show up in your firm's document library.
Process Automation — wire template generation into your status changes so documents send themselves.