Follow-up recommendations

What a follow-up recommendation is

At the end of a consultation, a lawyer can propose a **follow-up** — another booking, often with a recommended timeframe, price, and duration. The proposal goes to the sponsor (not directly to the beneficiary) when the original consultation was sponsored.

This keeps the financial decision with whoever is paying while letting the lawyer document their professional recommendation cleanly.

What the lawyer fills in

From the booking page after the consultation, the lawyer opens the follow-up form and provides:

Fields

• **Reason** — a short professional explanation (e.g. "Need to review the contract draft once the counterparty replies").
• **Recommended within** — a number of days from now (e.g. 14).
• **Proposed price** — the lawyer's fee for the next session, in euros.
• **Proposed duration** — usually 30 or 60 minutes.

Sponsor review

The sponsor (or the assigned caseworker, if the sponsorship is org-based) gets a notification with a link to **/dashboard/sponsorships/followups/[id]**. There they see the full proposal and can choose one of three actions.

Three options

• **Approve** — opens a slot picker. The sponsor must pick a date and time, then the booking is created on the beneficiary's behalf.
• **Decline** — the proposal is closed without a booking. A confirmation dialog appears because declining ends the recommendation.
• **Defer to beneficiary** — punts the decision to the beneficiary, who then sees the same approval screen and can pick a slot themselves.

Approving the proposal

When you click **Approve**, a slot picker appears with a date, start time, and end time field. Pick a moment that works for the beneficiary (and check the lawyer's availability if needed).

Submitting creates the booking with the proposed price and duration, deducts from the sponsorship budget (or case-package envelope, if active), and sends a confirmation to the beneficiary and the lawyer.

Declining the proposal

Clicking **Decline** opens a confirmation dialog: "Are you sure? This closes the recommendation." You can optionally add a note explaining the decline; the note is visible to the lawyer.

Deferring to the beneficiary

**Defer to beneficiary** transfers the decision. The beneficiary receives a notification and sees the same approval screen on their dashboard.

Use this when the sponsor wants to pre-authorise the lawyer's recommendation but leaves the timing to the beneficiary, or when the consultation is personal and the beneficiary should choose.

Expiry

Every recommendation has an automatic 14-day expiry. If nobody acts within that window, the proposal closes as expired and the lawyer has to send a new one. The expiry timestamp is shown on the approval screen.