The Legal section

What the Legal section is

Legal answers one question about your open work: would the paper behind each job hold up if it were ever disputed? It reads every open job and the documents filed against it, and shows which files are complete and what each incomplete one is missing. Around that, it surfaces the exposure that tends to turn into a legal question: lien windows that are closing, invoices that have gone long unpaid, clauses in your customer agreement that hand price or payment to the carrier, and the matters an attorney is working for you.

Legal is deliberately narrow. Insurance, licenses, and audit deadlines stay on Compliance, and the dollar amounts of liens and receivables stay on Cash. What lives here is whether the paper behind the work is in order.

Where to find it

Open Legal from the sidebar, under Risk, beside Certifications, Compliance, and Safety. The page lives at iq.verinode.ai/matters, and a search for "lien", "attorney", "dispute", or "change order" lands here. The Legal Hub sits directly below it in the same band. The header reads Legal with an Add Data button and three tabs: Cockpit, Analytics, and All Matters.

If the section is not switched on for your account yet, you land on its activation prompt instead.

Cockpit: open job files

The instrument at the top has the eyebrow Open job files, and its figure is how many of your open jobs carry a complete file, for example "8 of 12 complete." A complete file has four things on it:

• a signed work authorization,
• an estimate,
• a change order behind every supplement, and
• a record back from the carrier side showing the adjuster received the estimate.

Bars under the figure count the open jobs missing each piece, using the same words the table uses: Nothing on file, No signed work authorization, No estimate, A supplement with no change order, and No record the adjuster received the estimate. Clicking a bar takes you to the table. The standing line repeats the count in a sentence, "8 of 12 open jobs carry a complete file.", and adds a count per branch when you run more than one. The scope line reads "open jobs as of today".

IQ's read sits in a strip under the instrument. It names the facts worth your attention, such as how many supplements have no change order behind them and on which job the oldest one sits, or how many open jobs have no signed work authorization, and it always closes with the same sentence: "These are facts from the documents on file. What they mean for a dispute is an attorney's reading."

With no open jobs on file, the instrument reads "A job export with your open jobs turns this on, and with it a read of which job files would hold up." If the files could not be read, it says so and asks you to reload, which is different from having nothing on file.

Take Action

Take Action on Legal holds only what waits on you, in this order:

• Open matter: "[Firm] is waiting on you," when your attorney has marked a matter as waiting on something from you. It opens All Matters.
• Lien window: one tile per job whose lien window has passed or closes soon, reading for example "12 days left to act on its lien rights," "Today is the last day to act on its lien rights," or "The date to act on its lien rights has passed." It opens the Liens tab on Cash, where the amounts are.
• Change order: one tile per supplement with no change order behind it, reading "A signed change order behind this supplement closes the gap in the file." It opens the job.
• Ask the Legal Hub, always last and always present: "A contractor attorney answers, with the job file IQ already checked."

Analytics: the exposure around the files

The Analytics tab opens on four tiles, each read against its own past year where it has one:

• Lien windows: how many unpaid jobs have a lien window closing within a month, or "None closing." These are read from the Liens tab on Cash, never with the dollars, and the tile opens there.
• Long unpaid: how many jobs have an invoice past 90 days unpaid, with the oldest one's age. The balances stay on Cash, and the tile opens there.
• Contract clauses: how many clauses in your customer agreement IQ flagged as handing price or payment to the carrier, each named. With no agreement on file it reads "Your customer agreement turns this on, and with it the clauses that hand price or payment to the carrier." If the copy on file could not be read, it asks for a clearer one. It opens the Vault, where the agreement lives.
• Open matters: every matter not yet closed and every Legal Hub question still in flight. At zero it reads "A question you ask the Legal Hub appears here, and so does any matter an attorney takes on."

All Matters: the table

All Matters is one table with four views, searchable with Find a job or a matter:

• Matters: who it is with (With), its Status, and Since. A matter's status is your attorney's word: Taken on, In progress, Waiting on you, Resolved, or Closed. A Legal Hub question reads Asked, not yet protected, With the attorney, Answered, or Referred, waiting on your consent.
• Job files: every open job with a gap, and what it is Missing, for example "No signed work authorization · A supplement dated Mar 12, 2026 with no change order". Opening a row opens the job.
• Lien windows: each job with Days left and the Act by date. Opening a row opens the Liens tab on Cash.
• Long unpaid: each job and its Age. Opening a row opens Cash.

What fills the section

1. 1A job export with your open jobs turns the section on and gives it the jobs to check.
2. 2The documents on each job, signed work authorizations, estimates, change orders, and supplements, fill in each file as they arrive by upload or forward.
3. 3Carrier letters add the carrier's reply on each job file they were filed against, which is what closes the last piece of a complete file.
4. 4Your customer agreement turns on the clause read.

Send them through Add Data. When you need the full record of one job in a single document to hand to counsel, use the job's file export, covered in the job file export.

When you need a judgment: the Legal Hub

Everything above is a fact. When you need to know what a fact means, such as whether a missing change order weakens a claim, or whether to act on a lien window, take it to the Legal Hub, from the Ask the Legal Hub tile or from the sidebar. A contractor attorney answers there, with the job file IQ already checked, and the question then appears under Open matters and in the Matters view with its status as the attorney sets it.

Ask IQ about legal

IQ has a specialist for Legal, and it reads the same files, lien windows, and clauses this page draws. Ask it "which open jobs are missing a signed work authorization?" or "which supplements have no change order behind them?" and it answers with the facts on file. Like the page, it flags facts and leaves the reading of them to an attorney.

Data sources