Ethical walls and matter security

Ethical walls are available on Enterprise and during an active trial. Organization admins configure them under Settings → Ethical walls.

Groups, allows, and denies

Start with security groups for practices or matter teams. On a case Share tab, add allow or deny rules for groups or individual members. Explicit denies take precedence over allows, assignments, and admin visibility.

Conflict pairs connect two opposing matters. If a person has underlying access to one side, Northdocs blocks the other side and records an access-denial event. Matter names and document counts are filtered before list results are returned.

Cases and documents are personal by default. A document outside a case is visible to the person who uploaded it and the people they share it with, and admins do not see it automatically. Use Require a case for new documents when every working document must enter a controlled matter, where walls and deny rules apply.

Recommended sequence

1. Define groups.
2. Configure allow and deny rules.
3. Create conflict pairs.
4. Test with representatives from both teams.
5. Verify list and direct-link denials, then test expiry.
6. Review denial events and audit logs.