Onboarding Without the Chasing

The Company

Heliodor Legal is a commercial law firm in Kraków, about 65 people, mostly handling corporate transactions, M&A work, and regulatory matters for mid-sized Polish and international clients. They've grown steadily over the last few years and the work is genuinely complex — the kind where getting the client onboarding wrong early on creates compliance problems you're still unpicking months later.

The Pain

Marta runs operations. Every time a new matter opens, she needs four things to happen before the lawyers can properly start work: an AML check in one system, a conflict-of-interest screen in another, an engagement letter signed through their e-signature tool, and the new client record confirmed in the practice management system. None of these talk to each other.

So Marta, or one of the paralegals, manually checks each system, figures out which step is still open, works out who's responsible for it, and sends a chase message. Then checks again two days later. Sometimes the AML check is done but nobody's chased the engagement letter. Sometimes the conflict screen was flagged and it got missed. When it's one matter, it's manageable. When it's six matters opening in the same week, someone drops something. Marta's mornings disappear into this.

The Move

There's an agent that can handle the chasing part completely.

Here's how they'd set it up. When a new matter is created in their practice management system, the agent starts watching. It checks each of the four systems on a regular basis — AML platform, conflict-check tool, e-signature, and the client record. For whichever step isn't done yet, it sends a targeted message to the right person: the client if they haven't signed, the compliance officer if the AML check is pending, whoever opened the matter if the conflict screen hasn't been run. It keeps going until all four gates are cleared. Marta doesn't have to think about it.

Tools like Relay.app or Make can connect these systems without any custom development. You'd need a few hours to map the logic and test it, but nothing about this requires a developer.

The blind spot

The firm already has a checklist for this. So it doesn't feel broken — it just feels like admin. The assumption is that the checklist is the solution, and what's left is just people remembering to use it. But a checklist doesn't chase anyone. It just records what happened after the fact.

The pattern

The same setup works in a lot of other places:

• A recruitment firm that needs candidates to complete right-to-work checks, return a signed offer, and submit references before a start date — all tracked separately
• A property management company chasing landlords, tenants, and solicitors for different documents before a tenancy can go live
• A financial advisory firm where every new client needs ID verification, a risk questionnaire completed, and a suitability letter signed before advice can be given