Scope changes and beneficiary reconsent
How sponsorship scope is tightened or loosened, and what the beneficiary has to do.
Last updated: May 14, 2026
What scope is
Every sponsorship has a **scope** — the rules a beneficiary's bookings must respect. Scope includes: which practice areas are covered, which lawyers can be picked, an optional case description, a validity window, whether follow-ups are allowed, and an auto-approval ceiling for small follow-up amounts.
After a sponsorship is accepted, either side can propose changes to the scope. Whether the change applies immediately or needs beneficiary consent depends on whether it tightens or loosens the rules.
Tightening vs. loosening
**Tightening** = the new scope is a strict subset of the old one. **Loosening** = the new scope adds something the old one didn't allow. Tightening always applies immediately; loosening goes into a pending state and requires the beneficiary to reconsent.
Examples of tightening
- Removing a practice area from the covered list.
- Removing a preferred lawyer from the list (narrowing who can be picked).
- Switching `allow_followups` from true to false.
- Moving the validity-until date earlier, or lowering the auto-approval cents threshold.
Examples of loosening
- Adding a new practice area to the covered list.
- Extending the validity window or removing the expiry entirely.
- Raising the auto-approval threshold or switching `allow_followups` from false to true.
Tightening flow
Open the sponsorship and click **Edit scope**. Make the change and submit. The system detects that it's a pure tightening and writes the new values directly to the sponsorship row.
Both sides are notified. The beneficiary sees the new scope on their next booking attempt. No reconsent is required because the beneficiary is not being asked to commit to anything new.
Tightening applies the moment you submit. Any in-flight booking attempts that would violate the new scope will fail at submit time — the beneficiary will see a clear error and can adjust.
Loosening flow
Same edit form. When the system detects loosening, the proposed values are stored in `pending_scope_changes` instead of being applied directly. The sponsorship's effective scope stays unchanged until the beneficiary accepts.
The beneficiary sees a banner on their sponsorship card: "Sponsor proposed scope change — review". They have 14 days to accept or decline.
What the beneficiary does
From the beneficiary's sponsorships dashboard, opening the affected sponsorship reveals a pending-change panel. It shows the current values, the proposed values, and the expiry timestamp.
Beneficiary options
- **Accept** — the proposed values move into the sponsorship record. The change is now live.
- **Decline** — the pending change is discarded. The current scope stays as-is.
If the beneficiary does nothing for 14 days, the pending change auto-expires and is discarded — the same as decline. The sponsor can re-propose at any time.
Beneficiary-initiated tightening
Beneficiaries can also tighten scope on their own sponsorship (for example, narrowing the practice areas they're willing to use). Beneficiary tightening applies immediately, just like sponsor tightening. Beneficiaries cannot loosen scope — only the sponsor can do that.
Audit log
Every scope change — tighten, propose loosening, ack, decline, expire — is written to `sponsorship_audit_log` with the actor, old values, and new values. Both sides can review the history from the sponsorship detail page.