Client Info · Secure Access
The Client Portal: Secure Documents and Updates
Once you retain us, you get a secure online space to receive documents, review drafts, and follow progress on your file, without sending sensitive material through ordinary email.
Legal files generate a great deal of paper: disclosure packages, financial statements, medical records, draft agreements, and court documents. Sending that material back and forth by ordinary email is slow and, more importantly, not especially secure. Email travels through servers nobody in the relationship controls, attachments sit in inboxes indefinitely, and a single mistyped address can send a confidential document to a stranger. The client portal exists to remove that risk from the day to day handling of your matter.
Access is provided after you retain the firm, because a portal account is tied to an open file. There is no login form on this website and no self registration. When your retainer agreement is signed and your file is opened, we create your account and send an invitation directly to the email address you confirmed with us. If you would rather not use a portal at all, that is a choice you are entitled to make, and we will arrange another method.
What the portal is used for
Receiving documents from us
Draft agreements, court filings, correspondence, and disclosure are posted for you to download at any time, rather than arriving as attachments in an email thread.
Sending documents to us
Upload statements, records, photographs, and signed pages directly to your file, including from a phone camera, without worrying about attachment size limits.
Following progress
See key dates, completed steps, and what is currently outstanding, so you can check where your matter stands without waiting for a return call.
Reviewing drafts
Read a draft in your own time, note your comments, and return them in one place. Version confusion is one of the most common causes of avoidable delay in a file.
Secure messaging
Send routine questions and instructions through a channel attached to your matter, so nothing is lost in a personal inbox or buried under unrelated mail.
Account information
Access copies of your invoices and trust statements so the financial side of your file is as visible as the legal side.
How clients get access
- 01
Retain the firm
Portal access follows the retainer. After your consultation, if you decide to proceed, we prepare a written retainer agreement setting out the scope of the work and the fees.
- 02
Confirm your contact details
We confirm the email address to use, and we check that it is an account only you can access. This matters most in family and criminal matters where devices may be shared.
- 03
We create the account
Your file is opened and an account is created by our staff. You never need to register yourself, and we will never ask you to enter credentials on a public page of this website.
- 04
Accept the invitation
You receive an invitation from the portal service inviting you to set a password. Choose a strong password that you do not use anywhere else, and enable any additional verification offered.
- 05
Start using your file space
Once signed in you can see the documents already posted, upload what we have requested, and send messages that attach directly to your matter.
- 06
Access after the matter closes
Portal access is normally available for a defined period after your file closes. Download and store your own copies of important documents before that window ends.
How your information is protected
The portal is a professional service used by law firms, with security controls appropriate to confidential legal material. It supports encryption in transit and at rest, access controls limited to your file, and a record of who accessed a document and when.
- Documents are visible only to you and to the members of the firm working on your matter.
- Sign in is protected by a password you set, with additional verification available and strongly recommended.
- Activity on the file is logged, which creates an audit trail if a question ever arises about a document.
- Uploads are stored against your matter rather than in a personal inbox, which reduces the chance of misdelivery.
- Firm access is limited to staff with a professional reason to see your file.
- All use remains subject to solicitor and client privilege and to our obligations under Alberta privacy legislation.
We will never ask for your password
No one from Bhalla Law Offices will ever telephone or email to ask for your portal password, a verification code, or banking details. If you receive a message that appears to come from the firm and requests any of those things, do not respond. Call the office on the number you already have and confirm.
Using the portal safely
- Use a password unique to the portal, and store it in a password manager rather than in a note on your phone.
- Turn on two step verification if it is offered, particularly if you check the portal from a phone.
- Avoid signing in on shared, public, or workplace computers where another person may have access.
- Sign out fully when you finish, and lock your device with a passcode or biometric.
- Name uploaded files clearly, for example by describing the document and the date it relates to.
- Tell us immediately if your email address changes, if you lose a device, or if you think someone else has seen your file.
- Download and keep your own copies of final documents, since your personal archive should not depend on any single service.
If the portal is not right for you
Technology should make your matter easier, not add another obstacle. Some clients do not have reliable internet, prefer paper, or are in a situation where an online account is not safe to use. Every one of those is a legitimate reason, and no one is disadvantaged for choosing a different method.
Paper by mail or collection
We can post documents to an address you nominate, or hold them at the office for you to collect at a time that suits you.
Attending the office
You are welcome to review documents at the office with a lawyer or assistant present to answer questions as you read.
Telephone updates
Scheduled calls at agreed intervals work well for clients who prefer speaking to reading, and for matters where the written record is best kept short.
Encrypted email
Where email is the practical option, we can use protected delivery for sensitive attachments instead of sending them in the open.
What the portal is not for
The portal is a document and communication tool, not an emergency channel. Messages are read during business hours, so anything urgent, such as an arrest, a police request to attend, an imminent court appearance, or a service deadline that expires within days, should come to us by telephone. If we do not know something is urgent, it will be handled in the ordinary course.
It is also not a substitute for legal advice. Reading a status entry tells you what has happened, not what it means for your position or what you should do next. When a document is posted for your review, we will tell you what we need from you and by when. If anything on your file is unclear, call and ask rather than assuming that silence means nothing needs to be done.
Frequently asked questions
You do not create one yourself. After you retain the firm and your file is opened, our staff create the account and send an invitation to the email address you confirmed with us. There is no sign up or login form on this website, so if you receive a link asking you to log in from a public page, treat it as suspicious and call the office.
Generally, yes. Ordinary email passes through servers no one in the relationship controls, and attachments can remain in inboxes and backups indefinitely. The portal keeps documents inside a controlled environment with access limited to your file, password protection, and an access log. It also avoids the most common risk in practice, which is sending a document to the wrong recipient.
The account belongs to you and should be used only by you, because the material on your file is privileged and privilege belongs to the client. If you want someone else to receive information about your matter, tell us and we will document that authorisation properly. Sharing a password is never the right way to arrange it.
Use the password reset function offered by the portal, or call the office and we will reissue an invitation to your confirmed email address. If you have lost access to that email account itself, contact us by telephone so your identity can be confirmed before anything is re-sent. Do not have documents redirected to a new address by email request alone.
Yes. The portal supplements telephone and in person contact rather than replacing it. Substantive advice, strategy discussions, and anything sensitive are still best handled in a conversation. Use the portal for documents, routine questions, and status checks, and pick up the phone when the matter is urgent or the question is complex.
Related pages
The information on this page is general in nature and is not legal advice. Every matter depends on its own facts. Contact Bhalla Law Offices to discuss your situation with a lawyer licensed in Alberta.